The opening of the October 2023 session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican is a moment of truth for both the Church and for the legacy of Pope Francis. Here in the West, we have watched as the number of Catholics who practice the faith and agree with the Church on doctrinal and moral issues has steadily declined.
In many places, including Ireland, Catholic identity — people who self-identify as Catholic regardless of practice or belief — is in a freefall. There is no denying that the Catholic Church is suffering a severe loss of credibility today, resulting from the sexual abuse crisis and the Church’s ineffective response to a rapidly changing culture.
Controversial
The Church’s credibility gap widens when Catholics draw heightened attention to our most difficult and controversial teachings. We can no longer describe the now-mainstream moral vision of the secularised West as “a dictatorship of relativism”, because in reality it is a new orthodoxy whose adherents are every bit as committed to the promotion of causes — such as women’s equality, same-sex marriage, and contraceptive access — as Catholics have ever been to our principles.
As a result, the mainstream position of Western society is that many Catholic teachings, including on the ordination of women, human sexuality, and family planning, are repressive at best (and evil at worst).
Catholic leaders today disagree on how to best address this division and heal the polarisation in the Church. For some prominent figures, many of whom are outspoken critics of Pope Francis, the answer begins with the emphatic and clear articulation of Catholic doctrine.
This is the message of US Cardinal Raymond Burke, who has repeatedly insisted that doctrine must be at the forefront, such as when he said in an interview with an Australian Catholic newspaper, “there’s only one way for us to carry out a conversation about these matters and that is to make the point of reference the doctrine of the Church”. Such voices are not new in the Church.
In his address to open the Second Vatican Council in 1962, Pope Saint John XXIII said, “the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another”.
Yet during the Council and in the years that followed, countless so-called “prophets of doom” argued that Vatican II — or at least its implementation — ushered heresies and doctrinal errors into the Church at the highest levels. They are still with us.
Pope Francis also rejects the approach of these prophets of doom. As he declared at World Youth Day in Lisbon, “The Church is for everyone”. Francis recognises that affirming doctrinal statements and apologetical arguments are an ineffective means of evangelisation in our rapidly secularising culture.
As he wrote in Amoris Laetitia, “A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding ‘its inherent values’, or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin” (AL 301).
Credibility
A great challenge for the participants of the synodal assembly will be to discern new paths forward for evangelisation in light of this reality. It will not be easy. A long, well-funded, and cynical campaign to undermine the credibility of Pope Francis and the Synod has been underway for years.
The honesty and intentions of the participants in the assembly are already being questioned. Even though Pope Francis and the Synod’s promoters and organisers have repeatedly insisted that the integrity of the core doctrines of the Church is not up for discussion, right-wing media outlets and celebrity Catholic “apologists” are daily pushing out rumours of “fixed” or predetermined outcomes.
This narrative is in total contradiction to Francis’ vision of synodality, however. If the Synod is steered by an ideological agenda, left or right, then it will fail in its purpose. The fact of the matter is that nothing the Church has tried has been able to stem the steady exodus of Catholics from the Church.
Projects including lay ecclesial movements, well-meaning but often hollow attempts to make the faith more “relevant” for young people, and traditionalist efforts to emphasise Latin liturgy and moral doctrines have not balanced out the damage done by the abuse crisis, corruption, mis-management, and a Church whose moral doctrines are increasingly at odds with those of our civilization.
There is no project or program that will save the Church from itself. We need divine intervention. Pope Francis has said that the Holy Spirit is the “protagonist” of the Synod, and that the purpose of the Synod is to listen for and to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church. In order for the Synod to be successful, participants must ultimately set aside their own agendas and prayerfully ask where the Holy Spirit is leading us.
Cardinal Christophe Pierre, in an address to the US Bishops, stated that the Church needs “an eye-opening experience”. Our eyes will not be opened if our hearts and minds are closed. If the Church is to find lasting renewal in the areas of communion, participation and mission, openness to the voices of others is essential.
No one can be excluded from this dialogue, from the most devoted to those who struggle with the faith. We are often presented with new ideas and new paths forward, but we will never see them if we remain closed to the “God of Surprises”.
When we exclude or dismiss the perspectives of those whose decisions and experiences have led them in different directions than ours, we forfeit priceless opportunities to build community, create friendships, and share the gospel.
As we approach the Synod, Catholics can choose one of two paths. One path is to retreat into our assumptions, ideologies, and agendas. We can continue to insist that our way is the right way, and that the crisis in the Church could be fixed, if only everyone else would listen to us.
The other path is to follow the Successor of Peter, Pope Francis, and venture out with trust on this Synodal journey, to discover where the Holy Spirit is leading us.
Mike Lewis is the managing editor of the website Where Peter Is. Previously, he worked for Catholic Climate Covenant and the communications department of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
