We interrupt your reading about the war in Ukraine with a very important post about the global Catholic Synod on Synodality.
Synod on synodality? Say that three times fast. For some Catholics it’s kind of a Zen thing.
The Synod on Synodality is a two-year process that Pope Francis began last October. Officially known as “Synod 2021-2023: For a Synodal Church,” it is a process that allows bishops to consult with Catholics — from parishioners all the way up to priests — in a spirit of collaboration and openness. This includes official dialogue with some activists who actively dissent from church teachings.
Why should anyone care? Is this a news story that editors will care about?
A phrase like Synod on Synodality certainly won’t ever make it into a punchy headline, not even at The New York Post.
The secular press isn’t all that interested in doctrinal issues that don’t appeal to a larger audience or lack a political connection. It’s the reason why the pope going after the Latin Mass got little mainstream news attention while bishops batting President Joe Biden about receiving Holy Communion got tons of coverage. Then again, the synod will almost certainly contain strong LGBTQ news hooks.
It was in March 2020, on the eve of the pandemic, that Pope Francis announced the synod. It was quickly forgotten as the world battled the outbreak of COVID-19. The Vatican even set up a Twitter account for the synod.
Last October, when the pope launched the start of this process, the Catholic press did a very good job explaining what the Synod on Synodality is. For example, Catholic News Agency explained this global synod and its purpose this way:
The pope acknowledged that learning to listen was “a slow and perhaps tiring exercise” for bishops, priests, religious, and laity.
“Let us not soundproof our hearts; let us not remain barricaded in our certainties. Certainties often close us off. Let us listen to one another,” he encouraged Catholics.
The pope said that encounter and listening should lead to discernment.
“We see this in today’s Gospel,” he explained. “Jesus senses that the person before him is a good and religious man, obedient to the commandments, but he wants to lead him beyond the mere observance of precepts.”
“Through dialogue, he helps him to discern. Jesus encourages that man to look within, in the light of the love that the Lord himself had shown by his gaze, and to discern in that light what his heart truly treasures.”
“And in this way to discover that he cannot attain happiness by filling his life with more religious observances, but by emptying himself, selling whatever takes up space in his heart, in order to make room for God.”
The pope described the synod as “a journey of spiritual discernment” guided by God’s word.
The National Catholic Reporter, for example, has done a very good job covering this issue — even tagging the stories appropriately so that they can be all found in one place.
Commentary around the synod, especially at the start of this year, tried to put the process into context, while also looking to see where it could lead the church. In an op-ed piece written by Rev. Louis Cameli, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, he noted the following in America magazine:
A synod on synodality is a process about a process. And that stuck with me. A process about a process seemed to be without content. Where would this lead us? The questions that are posed by the preparatory documents to Catholics throughout the world probe process, not content. The questions about listening attentively, speaking openly and acting boldly are good questions. At the same time, they also seem to suffer from a certain vagueness. Where is a synod on synodality leading us? We are on the road together, but where is that road taking us? What is the destination? In the end, are we bound to be disappointed?
As I sat to reflect and pray over this, I could not get a precise fix on this “process about a process” until I recalled the larger context. Pope Francis is our first post-conciliar pope. He was ordained in 1969, four years after Vatican II concluded. He was formed in the renewal called for by the council and was steeped in its hope. With that reality in mind, the council then became my interpretative key to understand the remarkable synod on synodality that he was convoking.
Here is a question for journalists inside the church, and in the mainstream press: Will the asking of questions and this process as a whole only highlight the fissures that already exist in Catholicism?
For a religion that relies highly on hierarchy (and a polarizing one at that during the Francis era), this process seems out of step. The name doesn’t help. A synod is typically an assembly of clergy. The Synod on Synodality isn’t. As a result, many U.S. dioceses have attempted to explain what this synod is on their websites.
In a journalism context, explainers are much-needed here. There have been very few of them. I suspect that’s the case largely because this is a topic that doesn’t excite editors and reporters.
Here’s how the process works and a timeline: During the diocesan phase, which is currently underway, each bishop is asked to undertake a consultation process with local churches. In doing so, the Vatican has sent dioceses a preparatory document and a questionnaire. Feedback will come from a variety of sources, including lay movements and Catholic universities, as part of the feedback process.
It’s an important process that could very well see press coverage this September when the Vatican plans to release a working document. This will ultimately influence a document that the Vatican plans to make public in June 2023. The process will culminate in a meeting of bishops at the Vatican in October 2023.
Reporters love documents and meetings — they resemble politics — and that’s when this process will get plenty of attention. In the meantime, reporters should be doing news stories taking the temperature of where the church in various parts of the globe.
In the meantime, reporters could attend “listening sessions” that many churches are holding as part of this process. Another way is to focus on issues affecting the church — particularly outside the United States — that could impact the information that’s collected.
The Pillar ran a feature last week that did just that. The Substack site dedicated to covering the Catholic church took a look at the church in Germany and the issues that have sprouted up there. Brendan Hodge, in his analysis piece, opened his piece this way:
The German Catholic “synodal way” has made frequent headlines in recent years, as it has clashed over Church teaching and governance with Pope Francis and the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
But while the headlines are spicy, the context matters — and understanding the demographics of the Church in Germany may go a long way to understanding some elements of the doctrinal fights.
How does the German church fit in the context of global Catholicism? Why does it seem to place such high priority on married priests, ordained women, and softening unpopular Catholic doctrines? Are the demographics a factor?
How spicy? Here is a key section of a recent tmatt “On Religion” column, focusing on a key player in Europe and inside the actual structure of the synod process:
"The Church's positions on homosexual relationships as sinful are wrong," said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, in a recent interview with KDA, a German Catholic news agency. "I believe that the sociological and scientific foundation of this doctrine is no longer correct. It is time for a fundamental revision of Church teaching, and the way in which Pope Francis has spoken of homosexuality could lead to a change in doctrine. …
"In our archdiocese, in Luxembourg, no one is fired for being homosexual, or divorced and remarried. I can't toss them out, they would become unemployed, and how can such a thing be Christian? As for homosexual priests, there are many of these, and it would be good if they could talk about this with their bishop without his condemning them."
The latest unorthodox proclamations by Cardinal Hollerich commanded attention because he leads the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, as well as being the pope's choice as "relator general" for the October 2023 global Synod of Bishops, helping shape its work to weigh the church's future.
Back to the Hodge piece. He highlights these three contentious issues, including issues of moral theology:
Broadly speaking, the controversial initiatives of the “synodal way” fall into three categories.
First there is acceptance for relationships and lifestyles contrary to traditional Catholic teaching, including remarriage, same-sex relationships, and intercommunion with other faiths. It seems possible that those priorities would fit well with an aim of reducing the number of citizens who file paperwork to remove their Catholic affiliation for the church tax.
Second is a broadening of the eligibility for orders, so that married men and women could become priests. That would directly address a vocations crisis which threatens to limit the number of clerics in a church with plummeting vocations.
Third is a move toward greater lay control of parishes and of Catholic institutions generally. That aim is another way to address the vocations crisis, providing the German Church with people to serve in the institutions which it sees in the future it may be able to fund but not to staff.
As a result, many have seen the specter of a schism. In 2019, Pope Francis sent a letter to the German church reminding them that they need to walk in line with the universal church.
Will these issues creep their way into the feedback loop as the Synod on Synodality continues? If that’s the case, we could be looking at Vatican III. That would be big news.
It remains to be seen where this process takes us and what’s in store for the future of the church. For now, many remain in the dark on what this process is.
FIRST IMAGE: Synod on Synodality logo via the Vatican