Challenges of the synodal path

By Fr Martin Sirju

The Synod on synodality continues. Pope Francis has pushed back the date for the formal closing of the Synod to October 2024. This does not mean that the Synod agenda finishes in 2024 but continues as a new way of being Church.

At the centre of this adventure of becoming a more synodal Church is inclusivity and dialogue. Neither is easy to come by these days.

The postmodern culture pushes every man/woman to be for himself/herself—Benedict’s “dictatorship of relativism”. Dialogue is also difficult in the contemporary Catholic milieu with so many contending and hostile voices.

There are many challenges a synodal Church must face. I will mention three. The first is the LGBT challenge. I think, so far, we have lost the battle here. The youthful population is galloping ahead into a bright new world. Even in poor countries one can sense a youthful optimism.

This new world is increasingly dominated by a flexible gender theory. For them, sex is not gender; sex is male or female, but gender is something else.

As Church, we have uttered many don’ts but have we answered well the questions: Is gender flexible? If so, should it be flexed? And to what extent?

We need to have a more credible theology of sexuality in keeping with the best in the Church’s tradition, modern scientific insight, the latest developments in philosophy and a humble openness to the future and the ongoing evolution of the human person.

The young Catholic population, like the rest of the world’s, is heading in a direction opposite to the one maintained by the major religious traditions. Sexual theology in these traditions is being rejected almost en masse. How do we bring the young back? Perhaps the recent remarks of Pope Francis and Bishop McElroy in the US (see America Media) may turn us in another direction.

The second challenge is secularism. Western culture seems to want a world where God is but one option among many or perhaps none. The philosopher Charles Taylor speaks of a “disenchanted” universe. God was the centre of that enchantment, and all things and events were spoken of in reference to God.

It is not quite the same and one feels it at Inter-Religious Organization (IRO) events. As IRO members, we are invited to pray at private sector and government events. I have my doubts if the representative groups are serious about the spiritual. I often think we are window dressing, part of something that should be done to fulfil the status quo.

This is a phenomenon that priests struggle with, too. When discussions were underway on the six pastoral pillars (remember them?) an interesting comment came from a priest in his 40s.

He said when his parishioners reflected on ‘Clergy and Vocations’, they felt that the priest sometimes appears as if he does not quite believe or feel what he is doing. Does it all really make sense?

If priests do indeed feel like that, can we imagine where the laity are? I see it at Mass everywhere. People are there but they don’t quite know why they are there and what this being there (German dasein, ‘existence’) is all about. This is all part of the “disenchantment” that Taylor talks about.

The question is what do we need to do in the realm of grace to make people see and feel the extraordinary in the ordinary again?

Catholic sensibility

This third challenge is regaining a specific Catholic sensibility. Catholics by and large have dispensed with the old Catholic framework. Expressions like “the true Church”, “the only way” and overemphasis on the sacraments as unique and the only means of grace are all waning.

How do we rebuild a new Catholic sensibility in the light of the truth claims and wisdom of other religious traditions that Catholics are increasingly wooed by? In an age of “I’m spiritual but not religious”, people go for wisdom and not for doctrine. Can we find a space there?

We have come to realise that in some things it is true not only because Jesus said it, but because it’s true, Jesus said it. Catholics today, especially young ones, affirm truth and beauty wherever they find it, and that too is very Catholic. We will not keep our young Catholics if we insist that they look only at our truths. If dialogue and inclusivity is ever needed it is here.

Take what a Catholic friend of mine in his 20s said praising his younger brother: “The New Zealand Maori Tribe’s word whanau follows the meaning: ‘A Tree of Strength’, connected from the stars to the earth, with every birth and union, a new branch is created, we all grow in different directions, yet our roots remain the same. Thanks for always being the best tribal brother.”

This fraternal intimacy would never have been expressed like this a generation ago.

These then are some of the challenges we face. There will be temptations to return to the old order but that will be futile. We have to plod through the thicket and one day it will all make sense again.

Fr Martin Sirju is the Vicar General and Administrator at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception