Celebrating togetherness
October 2, 2024
Thursday October 3rd: Spreading the Word
October 3, 2024

Pathways for a synodal Church

Low section rear view of businessmen walking on street

Q: Archbishop J, how will the Synod work this year (Pt III)? 

‘Foundations’, ‘Relations’, ‘Pathways’, and ‘Places’ comprise the four sections of Instrumentum Laboris (IL), the working document of this year’s Synod on Synodality.

Each section will be the focus of a session at the meeting. This week, we will focus on the third section, ‘Pathways’. Each participant needs to prepare eight three-minute reflections. We will examine what is most valuable in each section and then determine how to strengthen or correct it. This is what I have been doing in recent weeks.

 

Pathways: the particularly valuable

This section begins with a fine quote—“A synodal Church is a relational Church in which interpersonal dynamics form the fabric of the life of a mission-oriented community, whose life unfolds within increasingly complex contexts.” Then it goes on to list four distinct but profoundly intertwined areas for the missionary synodal Church:

  1. An integral and shared formation
  2. Ecclesial discernment for mission
  3. Decision-making processes
  4. Transparency, accountability, and evaluation

The Church must navigate these four areas to achieve a genuine synodal approach. Recently, the AEC Bishops met to discuss the IL and gave me recommendations to take to Rome. Their findings, along with my own observations, are the foundation of this article.

 

Integral and Shared Formation

Every time people discuss synodality, they highlight the theme of formation. At our first meeting of 600 Church leaders in central Trinidad, in November 2022, formation was a top agenda item. The assembly agreed on the theme: Building Community, Inclusivity, and Dialogue. Formation then emerged as an area of great significance.

Formation is an essential strategy or pathway to building a synodal Church. The AEC Bishops want our training to build deep relationships, encourage broad participation, and ensure strong transparency and accountability.

Everything we want to see in the Church today and tomorrow requires a herculean effort at formation. There is no way around this; our transformation will be as good as the formation process we put in place.

The document points to context as vital for formation (cf IL 53). Each context will bring to the fore what is most important and necessary. No one size fits all in our synodal Universal Church.

We all share a gift: Conversation in the Spirit. It is a way to listen to God and each other. This common patrimony is itself a powerful formation tool that invites conversion. But it is one of many models of communal discernment that we have, and we need to understand each of them.

The envisioned formation is an integral model. The Instrumentum states: “Formation must, therefore, engage all the dimensions of the human person: intellectual, affective, and spiritual. It cannot remain a purely theoretical formation but must include concrete experiences and meaningful accompaniment” (56).

The integral nature is evident when different groups—laity, clergy, and religious—work together in formation (cf IL 57).

 

Discernment for Mission

Discernment is a key component of formation. It includes all—women, youth, seminarians, and others in formation, deacons, priests, and bishops. The IL identifies five key elements:

  1. Personal and communal prayer life, including participation in the Eucharist
  2. Adequate personal and communal preparation based on listening to the Word of God and reality
  3. Respectful and profound listening to the words of those with whom we come in contact
  4. The search for the widest possible consensus, not by finding the lowest common denominator, but by overflow, aiming at what most “makes hearts burn” (cf Lk 24:32); and
  5. While the consensus is to be formulated by those conducting the process, the agreement must be returned to all those who participated for verification.

If we do these well, the Church at all levels will have a culture of discernment, which will greatly enhance discipleship.

 

Decision-Making Processes

The goal of formation is to listen to God and others. This leads to discernment and, in turn, to decision-making. The IL describes this model: “In the synodal Church the whole community, in the free and rich diversity of its members, is called together to pray, listen, analyse, dialogue, discern and offer advice on taking pastoral decisions which correspond as closely as possible to God’s will” (67). It then adds that this statement requires firm implementation.

For this reason, the synod proposes an update in canon law, beyond a consultative vote. The move is intended to make discernment integral to all “decision-making and taking processes” (IL 70).

This is not, however, an attempt to make the Church a democracy, subject priests and bishops to obeying the people or rubber-stamping decisions already taken. It is to move the whole People of God to assume their rightful role and participate in the Church’s governance. The aim is to seek God’s will in things, little and big. This requires those involved to have access to all information.

 

Transparency, Accountability, Evaluation

“A synodal Church requires both a culture and practice of transparency and accountability, which are essential to fostering the mutual trust necessary for walking together and exercising co-responsibility for the sake of the common mission” (IL 73).

The IL refers to Acts 11:2ff, where Peter reports to the Church at Jerusalem on His mission, when He baptised Cornelius and his household, as an early example of accountability in the Church. To ensure transparency and accountability are at the core of the Church’s actions at all levels, the document proposes:

  1. An effective functioning of the Council for Economic Affairs
  2. Effective involvement of the People of God, especially the most competent members, in pastoral and economic planning
  3. Preparation and publication (with real accessibility) of an annual financial statement, certified, as much as possible, by external auditors, to make transparent the management of the goods and financial resources of the Church and its institutions
  4. An annual statement on the performance of the mission, including an illustration of the initiatives undertaken in the area of safeguarding (protection of minors and vulnerable persons) and promoting women’s access to positions of authority and their participation in decision-making and taking processes; and
  5. Periodic evaluation procedures on the performance of those exercising any form of ministry and holding any position within the Church. (IL 79)

This level of transparency and accountability is vital for the Church to move to discernment in its decision-making and implementation. All this will need formation.

 

PATHWAYS: Matters to be deepened, discussed, and corrected

We must strengthen our formation at every level. It should build and foster relationships. We want to be a relational Church. We seek communion and participation at all levels. This is a major paradigm shift in how the Church has operated over the last decades. Context is vital for formation, yet each diocese needs help to achieve this synodal transformation.

Dioceses and episcopal conferences need local and universal models and guidelines to make this transition. It is impossible to imagine the 3,172 ecclesiastical jurisdictions, including over 652 archdioceses and 2,249 dioceses, making this shift simultaneously.

The Vatican needs a dicastery, or governing team, to coordinate the transformation effort. It should use best practices from various groups and dioceses worldwide. This process must balance the contextual and the universal with great care, ensuring that decisions are transparent and accountable. Also, it must be a multi-year project. We should implement it in a consistent fashion, with small, manageable steps. This project will need long-term care.

 

Key Message:

Synodality seeks to establish a Church that is healthy and grounded in relationships. The pathways for a Synodal Church are formation, discernment, decision-making, and transparency.

Action Step:

Pray for the Synod during this month. Read my little book on synodality, Reviving our Caribbean Soul (click here to read)

Scripture Reading:

Acts 11:2ff.