Why Archbishop Eamon Martin needs to step up on synodality

“The Synthesis Report is clear, the people are calling for ACTION. It’s 40 years overdue! Appoint change managers with serious qualifications and expertise in organisational change. Let’s have new blood, new wine in new wine skins,” writes Garry O’Sullivan.

One year on from the Church in Ireland’s listening process, what has changed for lay men and women? Just to pick one of the concerns that came up in the synthesis report sent by the Irish bishops to Rome:

“Accountability, transparency, participation, sharing, good governance – these are all key words used to express the hopes of participants for the future of the Church in Ireland when it comes to leadership. These words named what was absent in the lived experience of the Church for many of those responding to the synodal consultation. Many people feel that decision-making and authority are exercised solely by priests and bishops. This power structure provokes discontent in them, frustration and anger with the processes of decision-making and exercise of authority at all levels in the Church. Adult faith development, resources for lay ministries and collaborative decision-making was flagged as poor or non-existent. Clergy acknowledged that in many contexts they are too tired and weary to engage in these developments.”

What has been done to remedy this? Little it seems but there are some areas where effort is being made by a bishop or two and his priests, but they are the minority. Yet it’s a start. Lay men and women are being invited to sit and vote in the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October. The Bishops’ Conference of Ireland has no lay women or men invited to it, let alone voting at it. It could be done by Archbishop Eamon Martin with the stroke of his pen. Will he?

How many men or women have been appointed to oversee the financial trusts of dioceses in Ireland? Surely suitably qualified laity would give professional good governance to such things than unqualified clerics? Again it could be changed in the morning. Will it?

Even basic communication promoting the idea of Synodality is very poor; 50% of Mass going Catholics haven’t even heard of it, very senior people on the Synodal steering committee have to ask permission to speak to a journalist, the chair of the committee – a lay woman – has been renamed as a Co-Chair – with a priest appointed as the other Co- Chair, why? General calls and emails from journalists on Synodality go unanswered for weeks. “Don’t ask because we won’t tell” seems to be the dominant theme.

National Synod

Among those appointed to run the National Synod there seem to be fear and suspicion, not of those outside but those inside. The bishops’ own conference is divided – the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore Phonsie Cullinan let the cat out of the bag by walking back on the synodal process even though he signed off on the document the bishops sent to Rome!

Who else feels that way? Is it any wonder their own staff are not sure footed, afraid to speak lest they offend a bishop, or damage themselves in the eyes of influential bishops. So we have to ask, is this the right way to run a synodal process? Are the best people involved or just the most convenient?

As Chair of the Bishops’ Conference and Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin has to step up and take responsibility for this process. Turning up in Prague for a Synodal conference is not enough, he needs to get the house in order at home. That means getting the reluctant bishops at the conference to turn up and switch on to synodality; to get bishops to get their reluctant priests to turn up and switch on, marshal financial and human resources, fundraise, get the laity involved more, give the Synod office its own communications people free from that of the Bishops’ Conference.

The Synthesis Report is clear, the people are calling for ACTION. It’s 40 years overdue! Appoint change managers with serious qualifications and expertise in organisational change. Let’s have new blood, new wine in new wine skins. One German bishop has said recently that synodal change could involve some of the greatest changes in the Church in 1000 years, since the reforms of Gregory in the 11th century.

Archbishop Eamon Martin and the Bishops’ Conference collectively don’t step up, this synodal process in Ireland which is the last hope of so many Mass going Catholics will fail miserably, and the blame will be laid at his door and not at the new younger bishops who have embraced synodality but don’t have the power and influence that he has.

The Irish lay Church is watching, the synodal world is watching and Rome is watching. Ireland needs to show some leadership and act with conviction. As the Indian Jesuit Myron J. Pereira, has written in this paper, “Does a synodal Church have a future?

If this means sharing in the responsibilities of governance and service, if this means an outreach in dialogue to those on the margins, if this means a template of peace and mercy for a violent and fractious world — why then, yes, a synodal Church is meant to become what its Lord and Master always wanted it to be — “a light to the world, a city on a hilltop” (Matt 5.14ff).”

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