Oct 22, 2021
It is hard to think about the church today without reference to the notion of synodality. This is especially true on Mission Sunday this year. It is celebrated just after the process involved in the Synod on Synodality begins on October 17. Added to that is the fact that mission is named as one of the key elements of synodality alongside communion and participation.
Synods have long been part of the way the church has gone about its life and mission. But with Pope Francis special emphasis and focus has been given to the idea of synodality. Like many others I have been trying to grasp what is behind this notion and why it is so central to how Pope Francis sees the Church. Here are some insights I have come across that have helped me understand the notion a bit more clearly.
I think the idea that resonated most comes from Sr Nuala Kenny. She is a paediatrician and bioethicist with 30 years of experience of dealing with the clerical abuse of minors in Canada. She sees in the notion of synodality an opportunity for prophesy. The prophet is one who holds up a mirror to a community so that it can see what it is called to be but also reveals how far it may have wandered from its original inspiration. She asks how the abuse of children could happen in a church founded on the radical compassion of Jesus. Then there are questions about why it subsequently often used silence, secrecy, and denial to cover the abuse. That the pattern of abuse cases was almost identical in several different countries suggested that there was a serious issue with the culture of the church itself rather than a problem with a few bad apples. Meant to be focused on the equality of the baptised it has been infected with clericalism and dominated by what one author called “a command and control” style of governance. Its moral theology was judgemental, sin-centred and rule focused. Continuing with her medical metaphors she states that given the harm done and the wounds inflicted by the abuse of power in all its forms what is required is not cosmetic but reconstructive surgery – root and branch.
The first step in the healing process is to listen to those who have been hurt – to become “a listening church”. A model for this is found in Luke’s gospel. Two of the disciples of Jesus are walking together and talking about all that had happened to them. A stranger joined them and invited them to tell their story while he listened. After listening to them the stranger suggested there was another way to interpret what had happened. They now listened to the stranger. It was only later when he broke bread with them that they recognised him. Immediately, their hearts aflame, they take up again the mission they had abandoned and returned to Jerusalem to share their good news.
I think Pope Francis is one who is willing to listen not just to the members of the church but also to those on the margins of society and even to strangers. He is keen that people find their voice and that those voices be heard. If the synod is a process to enable this to happen, then synodality suggests that it be the default mode for the church.
We may not like what we hear when we do this kind of listening. I have just finished reading Derek Scally’s book “The Best Catholics in the World”. As an Irish Catholic priest, I found it a confronting read. He seeks to understand what happened to the Catholic Ireland he knew as a child. He identifies many factors that have contributed to the to the decline of faith in Ireland but clearly clerical abuse and abuse in the Magdaleen Laundries and Mother and Baby homes has been massive factor in many turning their backs on the church.
The other idea that helped me came from Phyllis Zagano, who is a regular columnist with National Catholic Reporter. Her interpretation of the logo for the synod is “here comes everybody”. This speaks to the notions of participation and communion. We are a church that is diverse. Faith has taken root in many different cultures and has been enriched by many different charisms and ministries. These have not always been recognised in a church that was for periods of its history patriarchal and monocultural. Synodality is about tapping into this richness to provide a fresh impulse for the missionary work of the church.
In his message for Mission Sunday Pope Franics says “Jesus needs hearts capable of experiencing vocation as a true love story that urges them to go forth to the peripheries of our world as messengers and agents of compassion”. This is our original inspiration and both Mission Sunday and the notion of synodality are prophetic voices calling us to return to it.
Fr Pat O'Shea - Lower Hutt, New Zealand
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