A Working Tool

The big question: Does the tool work, or do we still have work to do? I’ve spent an intense few days reading the sixty pages of the Instrumentum Laboris, the “working tool” prepared for the 370 people who will be attending the Synod in October. My brief summary: Some of it, like the foreword, is pedestrian at best; some of it is a remarkable and very readable statement of the synod process in light of the social justice teaching of the church; and some of it is a list of annotated questions prepared for tables of twelve to discuss in Rome after reflection in advance.

On the whole, I generally agree with WOC: In it we find hope: The text invites discernment on the urgent needs of the church today, including ways to recognize the equal dignity of women through spiritual reflection and concrete steps.

Before I subject you to my take on the weeds of this document, I am going to recommend some detailed summaries. The most nuanced is Christopher Lamb’s, with open access in The Tablet blog; he focuses on women in the text and the meeting. If you have access beyond the Tablet paywall, he has more in the June 24 issue. Christopher White in NCR and Nicole Winfield for the AP both do more than report the press conference on the day of the release. Aleja Hertzler-McCain, also in NCR, catalogues the generally hopeful responses of church reform organizations working on women’s and LGBTQI+ issues, as well as the more critical response of Bishop Accountability, which felt the disaster of the sex abuse scandal was not sufficiently addressed.

I am going to answer my initial question by suggesting the work yet to be done for women, as well as how far this document comes. I do wonder how permanent this product of the Synod will be. I think of continuing relevance because of how frequently consulted the documents of Vatican II were for about a decade or so after it ended; a few are still quoted here, while we’ve moved beyond many others. For example, sections of B.2.4 and 5 about the roles of priests and bishops seem constrained by Vatican II definitions. I realize how much more open the spirit of this document is. That’s the good news.

What I imagine people saying in a few years is something like, “wasn’t a theology of gender better-developed by 2023?” While New Ways Ministry rejoiced at the use – twice — of LGBTQ+, I wonder how many bishops will realize that T is for Trans and Q is for Queer and + is for gender and sexual identities that they haven’t even thought about yet.

Sometimes it seems as if “women” is one of those unexamined identities. That’s what I thought reading section B1.2: “How can a synodal Church make credible the promise that “love and truth will meet” (Ps 85:11)?” Women are included in most of the categories in the text below, and I rejoice at every group that is identified. Being a more welcoming church is one of the most profound themes in the documents generated at most levels of the synod process.

But we know women seeking ordination experience a profound lack of welcome, which is not acknowledged here. Members of the LGBTQ+ community aren’t welcome to ordination either; but at least they are mentioned in answer to this question. This is the text I am responding to:

The desire to offer genuine welcome is a sentiment expressed by synod participants across diverse contexts:

1. the final documents of the Continental Assemblies often mention those who do not feel accepted in the Church, such as the divorced and remarried, people in polygamous marriages, or LGBTQ+ Catholics;
2. they also note how racial, tribal, ethnic, class or caste-based discrimination, also present in the People of God, leads some to feel less important or welcome in the community;
3. there are widespread reports of a variety of practical and cultural barriers that exclude persons with disabilities, which must be overcome;
4. concern also emerges that the poorest to whom the Good News is primarily addressed are too often on the margins of Christian communities (for example, migrants and refugees, street children, homeless persons, victims of human trafficking, and others);
5. the documents of the Continental Assemblies note that it is necessary to maintain the link between synodal conversion and care for survivors of abuse and those marginalised within the Church. The Continental Assemblies place great emphasis on learning to exercise justice as a form of care for those who have been wounded by members of the Church, especially victims and survivors of all forms of abuse.
6. listening to the most neglected voices is identified as the way to grow in the love and justice to which the Gospel calls us.

It is as if sexism does not exist, whereas we know that gender alone is enough for discrimination to occur against women as women. Would admitting sexism come a little too close to the truth of our church’s practice?

Others might answer that there’s a whole section on women, with what seems to many like a “call to consider” a great step forward: “women’s inclusion in the diaconate.” I will examine this in a subsequent blog. I hope it will be helpful to look in detail at some parts of the document that relate to those excluded by gender. While we may not be among the select few in the synod hall, we can hope to have the kind of impact we have already had by sharing our ideas.