Holding Onto Hope for the Synod
This month, Bondings 2.0 is reporting live from Rome as the final General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality meets.
ROME—I am not a process person. When I’m at a meeting and hear the words “icebreaker exercise,” I want to run for the exit. I prefer discussing issues, not doing exercises to get to meeting topics indirectly or discussing how we are going to discuss them. I much prefer discussing substantive issues, not process.
This predilection of mine is why on the first full working day of the Synod General Assembly, yesterday, I was so disturbed when participants at the daily press conference talked about how this October’s meeting will be focused on process, not substance.
Early indications this week signal that the Synod Assembly is not going to be talking about some of the key issues which the Catholic faithful have raised in synodal conversations since 2021. The Assembly tried that last year, and hit a roadblock over a number of issues, particularly LGBTQ+ topics and equal roles for women in the church. This year, instead, the Synod leaders intend to discuss HOW the church can have discussions about the substantial issues.
I made many internal groans at hearing this focus. Haven’t we been discussing and discussing some of these topics for decades now? When are the discussions going to stop and some decisions made? As the old saying goes, “not to decide is a decision itself.”
Despite my strong bias against process, I must grudgingly acknowledge that devising processes is an important stage in discussion, especially in an institution as large and diverse as the Roman Catholic Church. And is there any institution on our planet larger—and more diverse—than the Roman Catholic Church? The Synod Assembly is conducted in six different languages—and that is a far cry from how many languages and cultural groups make up the Church. So, yes, a process is needed, but there comes a time when decisions have to be made.
Fr. Giacomo Costa, SJ, who has been leading synodal methodology, said at the press conference that this assembly is “not the time for decision-making.” I want decisions made. From my point of view, we’ve been talking about these topics for far too long. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous saying that “justice deferred is justice denied” seems particularly appropriate for the Catholic hierarchy’s response to LGBTQ+ people.
So many issues weigh heavily on the minds and hearts of Catholics, issues which cause tremendous emotional pain and spiritual harm, issues which divide communities. So many people suffer because the Church moves so slowly. For example, LGBTQ+ people who desperately want to remain Catholic have had so many stumbling blocks in their paths for so long. Will the Church ever do anything about these problems or will it just continue to set up committees to study them?
Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary general of the Vatican’s synod office, addressed the Synod Assembly yesterday and explained that the study groups established for this Assembly will continue until June 2025, and that these groups “are called to remain open to a broader participation, that of the entire People of God.” He explained what this will mean:
“. . . it will be possible for everyone to send contributions, observations, proposals. Pastors and ecclesial leaders, but also and above all every believer, man or woman, and every group, association, movement or community will be able to participate with their own contribution.”
Again, it’s great that grassroots participation is invited and even encouraged, but if people keep participating and their participation is only met with more study, they will lose hope.
LGBTQ+ issues had already emerged as one of the top concerns of the faithful in the 2021-2023 consultations. How long will LGBTQ+ Catholics and their supporters remain engaged if their participation is met with endless committee work, but not action? I imagine many will be demoralized from the lack of response. I imagine many others are going to feel dispirited, as I sometimes feel, that their very concrete desires and calls to action became mired in processes which produce only vague, general, abstract language, not decisions.
I’ve been in Rome one day, and I’m already having a crisis of faith–not in God, but in how the Church operates. It poured rain here today, all day, which didn’t help my spirits. But I hold onto a glimmer of hope that progress can place at the Synod Assembly. Perhaps it was too naive that 368 people would be able to solve all the Church’s problems where the diversity of opinion is so wide. So, I’m willing to give the Synod a bit more time.
When Pope Francis first began making positive comments about LGBTQ+ people, part of his efforts to build a Church based on dialogue, encounter, and journeying together, I was greatly inspired. Many people felt his statements and actions were just window-dressing. When asked by journalists why I took an optimistic view of the pope, I told them that I believed the Catholic hierarchy’s intransigence on LGBTQ+ issues was so profound, that what happened is they painted themselves into a corner. And they had no way of getting out of it. I felt that Pope Francis’ emphasis on being open to LGBTQ+ people and renewing the goals of pastoral ministry were his ways of showing the hierarchy a way out of their corner.
If the Synod delegates can similarly devise a practical way for the Church to work its way out of so many corners into which so many previous popes and bishops painted it, that will be a great gift to the church.
I’m not giving up on the Synod on Synodality yet.
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—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, October 4, 2024
Has the Synodal process been an exercise in futility to vent feelings only?
Pierre
Thanks, Frank…you live up to your name…I am a process person and I’m not giving up…yet?…
Thanks! I needed to hear this. And Happy Feast Day!
Mr DeBerardo,
You mention some may become demoralized by the Synodal process. I already am. The whole intent of the Synod, including those invited to participate, was to “listen.” But that is exactly what is not happening; voices are shut off, issues are off the table and not open for discussion, concerns are squelched. I feel the whole thing is a sham. Please convince me I’m wrong, as I wish I was.
Dear Francis and New Ways Ministry,
Thank you for your report from the Synod. You expressed my feelings exactly, I am so disappointed and it is getting very hard to hang on in hope. It is by a very thing thread. I pray for us all, on both sides of the margin. May the Spirit guide us to a new paradigm and transform us.
I must say I agree with Frank, I have been part of the Body of Christ for 76 years and very active in the Church’s mission as many ways as I could for most of those years, but the glow is wearing off. I am finding less and less comfort coming from the Church. When will there be love and not just dressing up. My career was as a bureaucrat and I know one of the best ways to kill an idea was to discuss it until everything was decided. At a certain point action is the only way to get something done. I pray that the Holy Spirit lights a fire under those gathered in Rome and not leave us with a promise that 2025 or some other magic moment will do something great.
On September 26th, The Pew Research Center published its report on Catholic lay views in the Americas: “Majorities of Catholics say the church should allow use of birth control, ordain women priests.” Re Birth Control: 86% of Argentinians – 83% of US Americans – Yes; Women’s Ordination: 83% of Brazilians – 64% of US Americans – Yes. One way of avoiding the implications of these figures is to employ “the tried and true” – Talk about how you’re going to talk about the subject and refer to an elite committee who will give you the answer that you want. That will ensure another Catholic cohort will disappear or
Deepest, most thoughtful commentary on process versus action that I’ve seen in a long time.
I am so sorry to say I have given up. I had hoped for change and expressed it to my nephew the super conservative priest and he felt I was totally mis reading the messages from the pope early on. Now I am agreeing I was. Talk is nice. Action shows you mean what you say. Unfortunately there is no action. Even trying to find a priest in the USA to bless me and my partner ( we are soon to be married) is like finding a pink unicorn in the street. It pissed me off so much I decided to do the ultimate Catholic no-no get married on Holy Saturday. I love God who made me and loves me as I am. I have little tolerance left for Catholic hierarchy that is marginalizing those Jesus professed to love the most.
Hello,
What about this article:
https://www.ncregister.com/news/synod-study-group-s-discernment-on-sexuality-questions
While the article’s tone appears rather negative, I perceive a rather positive opening for us.
Maybe it is a reason to keep hope alive, in spite of the fact that this press release doesn’t seem available anywhere else. Even the Vatican News website article about study groups reports jumps over it for some reason… Indeed, our study group’s name refers to “controversial” topics after all.
Hi JP,
Thanks Much for referring us to the Register article. Highlights that the framework for doing Christian Ethics needs to change. If “we’ve always done it this way and so we can’t change because the Spirit inspired it” is the criterion, then learning what the Spirit may call us to now, will never be possible. John