What Exactly Is Happening in the Synod Assembly?

ROME—There’s not much news coming out of the Synod press conferences these days. Still, when I bump into assembly participants in St. Peter’s Square or on the Via della Conciliazione, all of them have noted that the delegates are getting along a lot better this year than they did last year. There are fewer knee jerk responses. There is less bitterness and acrimony. The sense among the delegates, I have been told, is that, after a year, they feel they are uniting with friends, rather than last year when they met with strangers.

If that change of tone is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, that is certainly good news, a step in the right direction. When people feel comfortable with each other, they are more predisposed to see each other’s points of view in a favorable light. Persuasion is built upon having a good relationship between a speaker and audience, or, more personally, between the two people conversing.

Although these “good vibes” may seem minor, perhaps they may be the most significant feat the Synod assembly achieves. If the only thing that the delegates who oppose LGBTQ+ equality learn is that Catholics who support LGBTQ+ equality are not enemies of the church, that may be a very big step forward.

Last year, it was reported that the opponents threatened to vote against the entire final report if LGBTQ+ people were mentioned in the text. They succeeded. If this year these opponents are less antagonistic, even if not fully affirming, it could be an important development.

Why is it so important for people in the Synod assembly to get along well? Because that is what the Synod’s goal of “journeying together” (emphasis mine) means. Much has been made that Synods are not parliaments. That message has often been emphasized to point out that Synods don’t operate by legislating through democratic votes—or even legislate at all.

The positive counterpart to this negative description is that what is important about a Synod is that people get along together. I am starting to see that this synodal project is about a totally new way of being church, one where all people’s concerns are brought together, not one where one faction dominates other factions. The domination model has reigned too long in the church, and it has its own unique name: clericalism.

Those of us who work for LGBTQ+ equality in the church have suffered too long in a system where one faction’s point of view overrules other factions’ viewpoints. We shouldn’t replicate that model now that we have a pope who tends to favor our perspective.

Journeying together, however, does not negate the need to continue to speak out strongly for LGBTQ+ equality. Listening to other perspectives, even those diametrically opposed, does not mean giving up on our own.  Considering other points of view, and treating the people who hold them with respect, does not mean one is surrendering a firmly held belief. It means that we are developing a relationship with people we disagree with and seeing them not as enemies, but as siblings in Christ.

In an earlier post in this series, I mentioned some ancient ideas about how rhetoric, the art of persuasion, works. The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote that the most powerful persuasive tool that a speaker can rely upon is that the audience trusts and identifies itself with the speaker too. He called this factor ethos. Three components make up ethos: the audience considers that the speaker is a person of good character, good judgment, and good will. As an example, think about how you often make choices about where and what to buy. Most of the time we depend upon the recommendation of someone we trust, someone we think knows something about what we want to buy, and someone who has our best interests at heart.

What I perceive as going on in the Synod assembly is a great exercise in building ethos with people in the church whose knowledge and life experiences are very different from our own. The delegates seem to be finding out more about what values are shared below the surface of the many issues which can seem to divide us. They are learning to trust one another and see that people they thought of as enemies actually may very well be people of good character, good judgment, and good will. That foundation needs to be built before any kind of understanding and persuasion can happen.

There’s an old Jewish tale about a rabbi who asks his students “How do we know when night has ended and day has begun?” The students offer several answers: When it is light enough to know where my property ends and my neighbor’s property begins; When it is light enough to be able to distinguish my house from my neighbor’s house; When it is light enough to be able to distinguish between a horse and a cow.

None of these answers satisfied the rabbi. He told them that all their answers were based on highlighting differences and divisions. The correct answer, he told them, was that night becomes day when it is light enough to look into the face of someone beside you and see that person as a family member or friend.

I think that is what the Synod on Synodality is trying to do for our too fractured and divided church.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, October 16, 2024