SYNOD ON SYNODALITY
This week, on Wednesday October 4th, the feast of his patron and muse, St Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis opened the long-awaited Synod in Rome. Synods arose out of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s as a way of maintaining the collegiality of the bishops across the globe. Collegiality comes from the theology of Church that the bishops of the world form a ‘college’ around the Pope, just as the early apostles did around St Peter, in order to be the chief authority for teaching and governance within the Church. Periodic synods of bishops ensured that major areas of doctrine and pastoral concern faced by the Church were discussed with a world-wide representation of bishops. In the early years, synods were fairly open forums for bishops and experts known as periti to give input and express their views prior to the discussions being drawn together into a final document of findings and recommendations to present to the Pope for possible approval and promulgation to shape the Church’s position on relevant matters of the day affecting both the faithful and the world in general. However, after a controversial Synod on Justice in 1981, successive synods have been heavily stage-managed by the Vatican Curia in a way that restricted discussion and managed outcomes.
This synod is different. Pope Francis, accepting that the Holy Spirit moves through the whole Church, including the lay faithful, wants this synod to be as fully open as possible and to develop "from a readiness to enter into a dynamic of constructive, respectful, and prayerful speaking, listening, and dialogue.” In other words, the Holy Father wants every member of the Church to have a voice at this synod. To this end, two years ago we were all invited to take part in discussions to feed into the synod process. Here we had a Pastoral Area conference attended by 90 people across our parishes, as well as local discussions in the constituent parishes, to provide material for the synod agenda known as the Instrumentum Laboris. There are three major questions the synod aims to address in two phases, this autumn and next:
1. How can we be more fully a sign and instrument of union with God and of the unity of all humanity?
2. How can we better share gifts and tasks in the service of the Gospel?
3. What processes, structures, and institutions are needed in a missionary synodal Church? It is likely that, under these heads, controversial issues such as the role of women in the Church, the climate emergency and the blessing of same-sex unions (not ‘marriages’) will be discussed, and these will attract the publicity of the world’s media, but the
more fundamental aim of the synod is to discuss and formulate ways in which we in the Church and humanity in general can be put more effectively in touch with our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in the context of the world in which we live now and in the future, “for of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we
can be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
.