Synod: USCCB Gathers Voices of the Church

Maybe you’ve seen this already, but read it again:

There was a desire for stronger leadership, discernment, and decision-making roles for women – both lay and religious – in their parishes and communities: “people mentioned a variety of ways in which women could exercise leadership, including preaching and ordination as deacon or priest. Ordination for women emerged not primarily as a solution to the problem of the priest shortage, but as a matter of justice.”

This excellent wording from Region XII, if I am reading the footnotes and map correctly, came out of Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon. (I say this only because Xavier La Normand in LaCroix International identifies the source as the northeastern US.) I am encouraged that it wasn’t the northeast, often blamed for liberal ideas. This is the language that the Synod drafting team chose to express the conclusions of Catholics across the country about ordination: “it’s a matter of JUSTICE.” We can add “for people of all genders.”

Three lay women (one a religious sister) and three men (one a bishop, one a priest) have actualized the vision of Pope Francis and Sr. Nathalie Becquart and honestly reflected the opinions of the people. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence is disappointed, according to La Normand. To him, the Synthesis makes no room for “the great and generous work that happens every day in the Church” or for “the joy of the Gospel, the keynote of this pontificate.” My reading is exactly the opposite.

The people who showed up for the synod sessions care deeply that the church they experience lives up to their deepest ideals. Page after page contains examples of the way ordinary Catholics understand what Church is and how they expect to find that joy of the Gospel in it. They want to grow in their faith and contribute their talents. They insist that parish life be inclusive, and they know when they see it and when they don’t. I find all this incredibly encouraging. Russ Petrus, Co-Director of FutureChurch says it well, if somewhat more negatively than I would:

The National Synthesis is hopeful precisely because it fairly represents the prophetic voices of the People of God and not the doctrinaire rigidity and clericalism that we have consistently experienced at the hands of many U.S. bishops.

Those bishops did not silence the people! Similarly, I find the most complete summary by Dennis Sadowski of Catholic News Service in NCR to be more glum than warranted. If you want the data and the official process, he’s got it. But if you want the hope and joy, read the Synthesis itself. Sadowski often skips over the most progressive aspects of the report. He mentions women up to the point of ordination, for example. Kind words without concrete actions don’t do it for me anymore.

After the Introduction, the first section of the Synthesis is “Enduring Wounds.” I find this absolutely real. For years I have welcomed hurting people who first have to say their pain. But they are there because they want healing and they want change. No surprise that sex abuse is the first example. Yet this is also here: “Many regional syntheses cited the perceived lack of unity among the bishops in the United States, and even of some individual bishops with the Holy Father, as a source of grave scandal.” The USCCB does not shirk from the truth, even about the institution that appointed them.

“Communion & Participation” is next: “Eucharist” and “Welcoming.” “In no particular order,” what’s first here? LGBTQ+, of course. The quote with which I began about ordination is in this section, as are concerns about racism and young people and others. This quote is from Region III, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and reflects the kind of thinking that I find so encouraging:

Youth who participated in synodal sessions, however, stressed that they should not be seen and spoken of mostly as the future of the Church, but should be recognized for their importance now and given a significant voice in the present. They want to be both seen and heard and included more in Church life, especially by participating meaningfully in parish and diocesan councils and ministries.”

And I want them there!

“Formation for Mission” is the section that I summarized already, about wanting to grow in faith and really be church. Also in here: “our social teaching is routinely described as our church’s best-kept secret” from Region V: Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee and “the Church needs to help parishioners understand the connection between Catholic social teaching and outreach beyond the borders of the parish” from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Good for them.

Finally, “Discernment.” The drafting committee writes more itself and quotes the regional reports less in this section. They are as idealistic as the rest of us:

The rediscovery of listening as a basic posture of a Church called to ongoing conversion is one of the most valuable gifts of the synodal experience in the United States… The Spirit is the principal agent of discernment.

To the extent persons of differing experiences and perceptions of “what’s really going on” in the Church continue to meet and listen to one another, perceptions become more realistic and less based on broader cultural or political narratives. Insight becomes more profound when perceptions are based on actual listening and personal experience.

I found this to be true in the session I attended, and am so pleased that these insights have not been lost. I’ve quoted a very idiosyncratic selection of some regional reports in the Synthesis. And I note that this creative committee established “Region XVI” to account for all the reports like those from WOC and FutureChurch and Dignity and New Ways Ministry, as well as from more mainstream non-diocesan sessions. The margins were not ignored.

I agree with Russ Petrus about the future: “This initial step must be followed by additional concrete efforts to form and empower all Catholics to actualize this new, synodal way of being and doing Church all have a share in discernment, leadership, and ministry.” Focus not only on what church officialdom will do with these reports; focus on creating opportunities to continue creating a new church locally and regionally.

And what is officialdom doing? Twenty-three “experts and theologians” are meeting for ten days to come up with a document for bishops to use in their “continental” gatherings this spring. It will be out in October. A new wrinkle: “the Synod office in Rome has laid down a few conditions: the continental assemblies must last at least five days and be held in the presence of lay people, while they may include a specific meeting time exclusively for bishops.” One result of the representative councils in Australia and Germany has been to highlight the differences between the bishops and the consensus of everyone else. I am wondering whether the leaders of the Synod want to create a similar transparency in the Synod process. That’s a good thing.

Do you remember how the voices of women were erased over the process of the never-issued USCCB women’s pastoral in the 1980s? Or how the Pope’s teaching after the Synod on the Amazon in 2019 did not deal with the recommended ordination of married men? Aspirational documents like these, and this week’s USCCB Synthesis, do not automatically result in a change in church teaching. But now we know what we believe and what action we expect, and we will know if our “sensus fidelium” is compromised. It was hard to expect a fair process, but there has been a fair process so far. Let us pray it continues.