Synods Again! How Long, Oh God?

Do you say this to yourself when you see another blog from me about the Synod? I have to confess I think that myself. What you need to know is that Southeastern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference, myself included, has demonstrated for forty years outside the Cathedral. While we know that we have caused some people inside to discuss our banners, songs, and prayers, we also know that the main effect has been to cement our own resolve.

Do I think there are other important issues confronting the church every day? Of course. Do I anticipate writing about the Synod beyond 2023? Oh, God! But for forty years it has been officially impossible to discuss ordination of people of all genders, and now bishops, laity, religious, and priests are debating it in public and some are coming out clearly in favor. I cannot stop writing about this because I hope that it will come to pass before the next forty years.

Today I am going to write about plain speaking in Germany. I have written about the Synodal Way in Germany before, most recently on August 6, about the kerfuffle caused by the authorship of “an unsigned declaration of the Holy See” on July 21, as well a letter clearly by Pope Francis himself in 2019. You can link here if you want to remind yourself of the controversies that preceded the most recent meetings on September 8-11.

The German leadership was not intimidated by the Holy See. The German process is different from that established by the Synod office. It is much more dynamic than the collating of reports and it seems more likely to NOT suppress the truth of the majority when it differs from current church teaching. Everybody votes. The total assembly is counted, but to pass, a separate count of the bishops has to reach two-thirds in favor. Roland Müller, an editor at Katholisch.de, is quoted by Robert Shine of New Ways Ministry:

“. . .the success of the reform project is primarily due to the fact that representatives of the different camps in the church have sat down at one table: preservers and reformers, bishops and lay people, men and women…This coming together across the ideological rifts within the church can probably be seen as the greatest success of the synodal path so far.”

Having to look the other in the eye makes it impossible to ignore their humanity and the sincerity of their concerns.

My favorite example of truth-telling is in a La Croix International interview with Cardinal Reinhardt Marx, former head of the German Bishops who helped initiate the Synodal Way after revelations of sex abuse roiled the country. Delphine Nerbollier asks: “Is it difficult for the bishops to face so many theologians and lay people in this synodal process?” and Marx answers:

In Germany we have a long tradition of having lay men and women and professors of theology, especially in the synodal committees of the dioceses.

So most bishops are used to having lay people contradict them.

But of course, not everyone likes this. Some bishops have not yet inegrated the change of perspective that synodality requires. This too is a process.

Even this spacing makes the honesty obvious. Asked about that unsigned Holy See declaration last July, Marx says:

I don’t think (the Vatican) statement played a role because it didn’t bring anything new to the table.

None of us wants to replace the pope, to override cannon law or rewrite the Church’s dogma. What we want is to ask questions, debate, and advance the discussion.

Exactly. Banish forever interdicting speech and thought.

Now I have not written about the particular proposals and what happened to them. If you really want a deep dive, all the original documents are online in English. I didn’t find what was actually passed. The most complete analyses of those resolutions related to LGBTQ issues is in the New Ways Blog for September 15 and 16 (above). I will only state the one that is most relevant to us:

“All ordained ministries and pastoral vocations in the Church should be open to the intersex and transgender baptised and confirmed people who sense a calling for themselves” It passed, but by that time the “hiding” bishops had been forced into the open.

Who did the forcing? A bishop and a laywoman. This made me chuckle the first time I read it in The Tablet. Christa Pongratz-Lippitt reports that Bishops Conference president Georg Bätzing:

and the president of the Central Committee of German (lay) Catholics, Irme Stetter-Karp, who together head the “Synodal Way” praesidium, pointed out that the reason for the previous day’s crisis was that many of the bishops had not taken part in the hearings and discussions of the “Synodal Way”. She accused these bishops of being “secret blockers”.

Bätzing announced that from then on voting would no longer be anonymous but would take place by a show of hands. Speaking time was lengthened from one minute to two.

Lo and behold, those who had been reluctant to share their opinions came forward and spoke. Bätzing gathered the bishops separately before every subsequent vote, and, in an example of what happens in synodality, positions on all sides were modified somewhat and passed. Sometimes the exercise of power is appropriate. “Finally, we see the presence of a center that wants to move forward and refuses to be polarized,” said Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of Speyer, quoted by Nerbollier in La Croix. The report
of this event with the most context is from the soon-to-be late-and-lamented Catholic News Service in NCR.

The original text of the proposed resolution on women in ministry is 31 pages long. While it is an invaluable resource, it is too long to quote. Even the conclusion, “6. Looking back at the argumentation and perspectives,” is too long. This is from section 6.1:

There is no uninterrupted line of tradition for excluding women from the ministry of proclamation of the Gospel. Besides supposedly unambiguous statements in the mainstream of theological tradition arguing against women, there have always also been contrary developments. They brought new perspectives and answers to the demands of the respective time and culture. Women were involved in this to a significant degree.

The new approach to the ministries in the Biblical texts, and the approach to the fundamental equality of all faithful, means placing the question of granting women access to the sacramental ministry in the context of the fundamental renewal of the theology ministry. The question of the representation of Christ is to be distinguished from that of the natural likeness to a man. Jesus Christ is present when people act in His Spirit.

The contours of a gender-equitable Church can be seen in places where everyone sees themselves as a community of equals following Jesus: In this community there is no discrimination, and no power imbalance is caused by questions of status. Everyone is seeking the truth as equals. Women visionaries and prophets are also heard. The words of Jesus “But it shall not be so among you” (Mark 10:43) are an incentive to invest time, strength and endurance in this hope.

This — coming before bishops and laity, priests and religious, in position to effect a real change — makes forty years of work gratifying, and maybe forty more years unnecessary.