Build the synodal church

There is only one way to be church today in the mind of Pope Francis – synodal. This is not by accident. The times in which we live are often referred to as post-modern. Post-modernism espouses splintering, atomisation and fragmentation. Only micro-narratives matter. There are no major ones anymore, including the Christian narrative that shaped western society.
People, therefore, without intending it as some nefarious plan, have become alienated and disconnected. The seventeenth century agrarian model of the parish has collapsed. People come to church more as a collection of individuals than as a community. The Sunday liturgy has become an increasingly online phenomenon that one can look at in pyjamas.
The Pope wants something more. He wants people journeying together, as the early Christians did, as the Church did in different epochs in history, as for example, through the anchoress and monastic movements.
Today’s gospel highlights this. Disciples are sent out in pairs. Priests and lay evangelists are not superhumans. They should not operate out of a messianic model – “we are here to save the world and attend to your every need.” Only God does that. We are to work together, and we cannot work together unless we first listen.
We have just come through a process of listening. This is not just for Synod 2023 as Archbishop Jason Gordon has repeatedly said. It is for a future church. This is what the Pope wants. Healing the fragmentation of the modern era requires ongoing listening. To listen, one first has to be present.
This is one of the complaints of the laity – they are not seeing their priests enough. They would like to see them – in their area, along their street, in their house. Pope Francis says one of the simple facts we overlook in the gospel is “Jesus walked!” Nothing gets you closer to people, into the messiness of their lives, than walking the turf.
This is not only the task of parish pastoral workers Father may send out, but his task too: the disciples went to “the towns and villages he himself was to visit.” We are to visit not only the middle-class in the towns but especially people in the villages, without Wi-Fi and running water; without prestige schools and private nursing homes; with gaping potholes and children with learning disabilities.
A synodal church demands a certain kind of preaching. It must be a preaching rooted in people’s lived experience, keeping one’s ear close to the ground. When the priest finishes preaching, people must feel it in their bellies as Fr Michel de Verteuil CSSp used to say. People don’t expect priests to be perfect, but they do expect them to touch hearts on Sunday morning.
Synodality requires a certain kind of theologising too, like the Conference on Theology in the Caribbean Today (CTCT) is doing – constructing local theologies from the ground up: listening to the poor, attuned to the experience of women, the emasculation of men by colonialism and post-colonialism, the challenges of education and voices of those of other faiths.
Pope Francis notes: “Good theologians, like good shepherds, even smell of the people and the streets and, with their reflection, pour oil and wine on the wounds of many.” There is hope in these fragmented and disconnected times. It lies in a synodal church. Let’s build it!