Maybe the first thing to say about the October Synod of Bishops is to note the human dimension. Over 300 delegates meeting together for over 3 weeks, most of them without prior knowledge of one another.
They will need time to come to terms with their surroundings and with each other, to find space in coffee bars to chat and gossip, spaces for prayer and quiet reflection, and to become familiar with the way of proceeding in the Paul VI ‘Aula’, so that they are not overwhelmed and depart somewhat bewildered by it all.
It will help that there is a 3-day retreat period leading in to the formal opening of the Synod and that this is a two-leg event with, hopefully, as many as possible of this year’s group returning next year to complete the job.
Unique
This is a rather unique synodal event: there will be an unprecedented number of the non-ordained present, among them lay and religious women. It will be interesting to see the effect of this: it is well known that it is one thing to speak about people when they are not present, another entirely to speak of them when they are with you in the same room. It is of course also, in faith, an event with a divine dimension, and primarily so.
The ‘conversation in the Spirit’ (spiritual conversation) methodology should already be familiar to most participants, and this and shared liturgical celebrations will be a great help to the communal discernment at the heart of the process.
I would expect that the great themes already enunciated in the Working Document (Instrumentum Laboris) will be touched on: war and peace, climate change and biodiversity, an unjust economic system, cultural colonisation, immigration, secularism, the open wound of abuse – including sexual abuse in the Church.
All this is faithful to the understanding of Vatican II that the Church is there not primarily for itself but as a ‘light for the world’, and this missionary thrust is only possible if, in creative fidelity to the Word of God and the great tradition, it learns to read ‘the signs of the times’.
There will be an eye out for the ecumenical and inter-faith dimensions. And since the credibility of the Church’s missionary voice is dependent also on its own internal witness, there will be attention to the intra-ecclesial themes that have arisen globally throughout the consultation process leading up to this Synod – the need for a more welcoming, inclusive, less judgemental Church; the role of women; the contested nature of some Church teaching, notably on sexuality and gender; the need for greater co-responsibility in governance, not least to address the abuse crisis.
Not all questions can be addressed with equal rigour. The Working Document notes (par 6): ‘Part of the challenge of synodality is to discern the level at which it is most appropriate to address each question’.
It will become quickly apparent also that conflict, tension and disagreement are part of the process: the antidote to this is, as Pope Francis never tires articulating, not to avoid the conflict but to ‘endure it’, trusting in the Spirit that through candid speech (parrhesia) and patient and generous listening (hypomene) we can hope for consensus gradually to emerge, without attempting to resolve issues too quickly and at any cost, or giving way to destructive polarisation.
Key issues
It may well be that this leg of the Synod will content itself with identifying key issues which will be passed on for further study and discussion over the coming year and returned to in October 2024 for a more conclusive discernment.
Among them may well be the issue of co-responsibility in governance (from parish level up, with implications for the role of the papacy itself), with the attendant changes in structures, institutions and law that this will entail; the participation of women at decision making level in the Church, and, which would give a powerful signal, the naming of diaconate as an area for further study and decision; the determination to keep the abuse issue on the agenda, and even, in the words of the Irish National Synthesis, to understand it as ‘a lens’ through which all else needs to be viewed; the renewed welcoming of all into the Church, especially those (like the divorced and remarried, members of the LGBTQ+ community) who have felt alienated, and the determination to address them in new language.
Change
Which brings me, finally, to an underlying issue that is unlikely to arise directly at this Synod but will surely bubble up time and again under the surface. I refer to the issue of change in Church teaching, which Pope Francis himself addressed recently in an address to Portuguese Jesuits.
Under the rubric of ‘evolution’ Francis noted how the Church had often changed its stance on particular issues over the centuries, instancing slavery, the possession of nuclear arms and the death penalty.
In a recent issue of Studies (Summer, 2023) Newman scholar Dermot Roantree noted that ‘… Newman became a Catholic because the Church did change, not because it didn’t’. We have lost this sense of what is traditionally known as the ‘development of doctrine’ within the Catholic Church, and have become so mired in an attitude towards tradition that confuses fidelity with immutability and not creativity that, as the late Gabriel Daly argued, the Catholic Church ‘does change’ through ‘amnesia’, claiming an unbroken chain of continuity which is historically unsustainable.
It would be good to see some movement on this underlying fault-line. Belloc’s Path to Rome was written at the start of the 20th century at a time of flourishing ultra-Montanism. We now, ironically and astonishingly, have a Pope who wants to bring about a healthy ‘de-centralisation’ of the Church, who regards the ‘peripheries’ as just as important as the centre, who wants to ‘invert the pyramid’.
For all the risks and dangers, this is an exciting time for the Catholic Church.
Former Irish Provincial of the Jesuits, Gerry O’Hanlon SJ, is a theologian and author of many books, including Theology in the Public Square and A New Vision for the Catholic Church. He is currently Social Theologian with the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice.
