O, Canada!

Last week, I wrote about five – and ultimately, six – “non-bishop” delegates from the United States to the Synod. All were delegates to the North American Continental Assembly, as were four other non-bishops chosen from Canada. You probably remember that Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Islands were made part of the Latin American Continental Assembly because they had been meeting together for years. Maybe I’ll find out more about those delegates as time goes on. But this week, I’ll write about these four Canadians.

Perhaps Brian Fraga’s profile of theologian Catherine Clifford in NCR is another in the series I wondered about last week. She teaches systematic and historical theology at St. Paul University in Ottawa, where she founded the Center for Research on Vatican II and 21st Century Catholicism. Connecting Vatican II to the future is what the Synod is all about.

In this interview, Clifford focuses on lay ministry, which she sees as having grown exponentially since Vatican II. “These are spirit-led movements,” she says. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘Have we fully received what the spirit is doing?'” In a May article in NCR, Clifford argues against the pre-Vatican II separation of the “teaching church” (bishops) from the “learning church” (laity). She writes, “Francis rightly contends that the Vatican II’s recovery of the early church’s grasp of the sense of the faithful in all the baptized precludes this ‘rigid separation.’” It’s a strong article, though it’s not among the topics that the USCCB noted in their brief biography of her: ““Theological and Pastoral Contributions to Synodality from North America,” “Synodality: What Have We Learned along the Way?”, “Leaning into the Distant Goal of Vatican II: Pope Francis, Synodality, and Christian Unity.”

With Fraga, Clifford welcomes “open and honest discussions” that might bring change. “The church has always adapted in every age,” Clifford says. “Today we have to ask ourselves, ‘What structures and ministries do we need to enable the church to carry out its mission in the world today?’ And that will include our structures of ministry.” She notes that women in ordained ministry is one of the “huge, heavy complex issues that are being put on the table from the consultative process.” Fraga summarizes, “But for now the more important thing…is for Catholics to learn to face those issues together…‘The process is as important as whatever decisions might be taken.’” She’s obviously well-prepared to assume a leadership role in facilitating that discussion.

Christopher White’s early July article in NCR includes at least one link to the other three Canadian delegates. The USCCB website and Jonathan Liedl for EWTN’s Catholic News Agency both have brief biographies of all the North Americans. Liedl provides some juicy comments that I might have used last week if I had done a better search.

Montrealer Sami Aoun is a natural choice for Pope Francis because he is “immersed in issues touching the Church in the Middle East,” according to the USCCB. Ecumenists in Canada praised his appointment. Professor at the Center for Contemporary Religious Studies in Quebec and Emeritus at the Université de Sherbrook, he co-founded the first Global Chair in the prevention of radicalization and violent extremism. A Maronite Catholic, he co-authored the article linked to in NCR; its about how well-established the Lebanese have been in Quebec since the early 20^th century. Liedl says “he can perhaps be described as more representative of the typical person in the pews,” I think because he’s an older man who’s not going to be progressive in the culture wars sense, a concern of Liedl’s. Certainly his scholarship on Islam and the Arab world would not put him in that category.

In 2015 Dan Stockman interviewed Sister of Charity of St. Mary Chantal Desmarais for NCR’s Global Sisters Report, which is a lot more illuminating than the USCCB summary. The bishops say “She is very involved in catechesis and evangelical animation for her diocese.” Animation, to say the least! She plays hockey and teaches karate. She also was running a retreat center in the country and teaching in Montreal. She tells Stockman, “It’s like Pope Francis said, you need to go out and meet people. To be the presence of Jesus Christ is my purpose in life. He did not do just one thing only. He was alone sometimes, and with lots of people sometimes.” Stockman says she does most everything with her dog. Desmarais took a leadership role in the Synod process in her French-majority diocese.

Linda Staudt of Windsor did the same; she was chair of the committee to prepare the Ontario synodal report, and did a fair amount of speaking throughout the process. She had a long and varied career in education, retiring as director of the London District Catholic School Board in Canada. Now she’s is the Director for Safe Environment Services for King’s University College at Western University Canada. She’s also an athlete in the Windsor-Essex County Sports Hall of Fame. In 1981, she won the Montreal International Marathon, the Canadian Marathon in Regina, and the Tokyo International Marathon, and the year before came in third in the London Marathon in the UK. Jean Moylan, blogging for the CSJs in Canada, says, “I heard a loud crash and realized that another woman had broken a glass ceiling!” Staudt’s “first reaction was ‘the tent has truly expanded’” when she heard that lay people were to participate; when she herself was invited, she was “honored and humbled,” of course; but also honest: “To experience firsthand ‘up close and personal’ this synodal journey of the Church, is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s not the October I had planned.” 

Not the October any non-bishop could have planned. My only surprise, given the remorse expressed about the church’s treatment of the native population in Canada, including a visit from the Pope last year, is that no indigenous representative was chosen from North America. Perhaps that voice will come from other continents. Certainly it was present at the Synod on the Amazon, but it’s hardly a matter of “been there, done that.” Perhaps the issue of the residential schools is still too controversial, as Gina Christian writes for OSV News in America.

These four voices do balance the other important populations in Canada—English, French, and immigrant—and each person brings a specialization or a skill that seems unique to me. What a process choosing them, all of them, must have been. I look forward to future tumbles of that bin to see who else will be spending October in Rome.