What’s Next for the Synod on Synodality and LGBTQ+ Issues?

Because we are all called to participation and co-responsibility in the life of a synodal church, we should now figure out what to do in the period between this past October’s General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality and the final General Assembly in October 2024?

The General Secretariat of the Synod on Synodality began to provide guidance on that issue last week by releasing a document entitled “How to Be A Synodal Church In Mission?“ that outlines their vision for a concrete “roadmap” of how the global church can receive the synod’s work thus far and contribute to its success.

The document distinguishes three areas of the work called for in this past October’s synthesis report, as depicted in the timeline below. One set of tasks, under the headline “Relevant Matters,” involves questions for the universal church and for particular theological and canonical experts working with the relevant dicasteries of the Roman Curia. These tasks include things like investigating possible revisions of the Code of Canon Law,and “the deepening of theological and pastoral research on the diaconate and, more specifically, on women’s admission to the diaconate.” These tasks will lead to reports presented to the October 2024 assembly in consultation with Pope Francis.

While those conversations will be relatively distant from many of us, the other two areas, labeled “Deepening” and “Keeping the Synodal Spirit Alive,” are intended to help all Catholics continue to participate in the work of the Synod in the coming months.

Under the heading of “Deepening,” the document asks Catholics to explore ways of embodying synodality in their local situations and communities. It centers on the question, “HOW can we be a synodal Church in mission?” [emphasis in original], and calls for reflection “on the concrete forms of the missionary commitment to which we are called.” If much of the synodal discussion so far has focused on understanding what synodality is, this step attempts to develop more practical ideas of how synodality might work in the church. They invite Catholics to ask the following questions:

“HOW can we enhance the differentiated co-responsibility in the mission of all the members of the People of God? What ways of relating, structures, processes of discernment and decision-making with regard to mission make it possible to recognise, shape, and promote co-responsibility? What ministries and participatory bodies can be renewed or introduced to better express this co-responsibility?”

This new conversation is not intended to rehash the pre-synodal consultations, but to deepen Catholics’ reflections on developing “good practices that represent visible and concrete signs of synodality,” in local dioceses and regional or national groupings.

As during the pre-synodal consultations of 2022 and 2023, it is crucial that LGBTQ+ Catholics contribute their experiences and their opinions to these conversations. The document states, “in addition to the participatory bodies at diocesan level and the synodal team already established, it will be important to involve people and groups that express a variety of experiences, skills, charisms, ministries within the People of God and whose point of view is of particular help in focusing on the ‘how.’”

The third area, “Keeping the Synodal Spirit Alive,” focuses on how the church can continue initiatives of dialogue, mutual listening, and encounter in the coming year–and share reflections on those practices for the October 2024 assembly. Rather than seeing the synodal initiatives leading to the General Assembly as a “one-off,” the document asks local churches to continue engaging synodally, “to keep alive that dynamism of listening and dialogue with everyone, especially with those who remain more on the margins of the life of the Church.” The text invites leaders:

“to promote the most appropriate initiatives to involve the whole People of God (formative activities, theological in- depth studies, celebrations in synodal style, grassroots consultations, listening to minority populations and groups living in conditions of poverty and social marginality, spaces in which to address controversial issues, etc.), using the methods already successfully adopted during the first phase, in particular Conversation in the Spirit.”

This explicit call to make sure that the Church continues to reach out to “those who remain more on the margins of the life of the Church” or in “conditions of…social marginality” keeps open needed space for the experiences of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families who find themselves on the margins of ecclesial life. It also calls all Catholics to exercise the skills of synodal dialogue and Spirit-led conversation that we as a synodal Church have begun to practice.

All of this synodal engagement depends upon the leadership of our bishops, each of whom “has an irreplaceable role in providing stimulus” for continuing the work of the Synod of Synodality. Sadly, some dioceses and perhaps some national or regional groupings may be less open to robustly continuing the conversations begun in the past few years. But if followed, this document provides a plan not only for the coming months in anticipation of the October 2024 assembly, but also for the more distant future of continued recovery of the skills of dialogue and encounter in the service of mission with which Pope Francis has been guiding our synodal journey.

—Brian Flanagan, New Ways Ministry, December 18, 2023