Balancing Act

My trainer likes to have us do tightrope walking – just on the floor – to improve our balance. I’m not very good at it, especially when we are to look left and right as we walk toe to heel. This comes to mind as I read the tremendous volume of articles being generated about the Synod. Someone commented that Pope Francis was just an events person and he’d have no permanent impact on the church. He certainly has generated an event, one for which he may not have been fully prepared.

Cindy Wooden quotes Francis saying “The priesthood for women?” Ours is one of those issues that he sees “outsiders” raising about the Synod. He noticed, though we are  “outsiders” only to the Synod, not the church.

What would he rather have everyone understand? 

“The church has stopped, as the apostles stopped after Good Friday, on that Holy Saturday,” closed in the Upper Room, he said. “But they were afraid; we are not. … It is a pause for the whole church to listen.”

We hope those forty women’s ordination supporters who raised that enormous purple banner – the outsiders – provided a Good Friday moment that the whole church can pause and listen to, without fear. 

Gerald O’Connell’s report that there’s an unusual emphasis on prayer impressed me, probably because I have experienced the seriousness such reflection inspires. Dominican friar Timothy Radcliffe got the most attention at the three-day retreat that many of the participants attended. Thomas Reese summarizes his talks and includes links in America. 

The Vatican’s Synod site is the only place I found the name of the other presenter, “Rev. Maria Grazia Angelini O.S.B.,” a Benedictine nun, who introduced the scripture readings before each mass. She concludes her first reflection with this:

“You, on the other hand, seeing”, says Jesus, “you have not even converted to believe him!”. Christian authority – even that of bishops, but any authority in the church – does not consist in enjoying special lights, extraordinary vibrations, leadership qualities, or anything else. It consists in being attuned again and again – thanks to the Eucharist – to the authority of Jesus and, in his light, to know reality and consequently to recognize honestly when we have taken a wrong turn. This, the sinners and tax collectors, bereft of religious power and the last among us, have recognized – and teach us.

We will have to rediscover the blessing of being, in a certain way, preceded by them in the synodal process, with their expectations and questions, anxieties and complaints. The road is open. Let us be on our way!

I love being among the “sinners and tax collectors” who participated in the Synod process and I’m glad those in Rome were reminded that they were following us. 

Journalists are invited when Radcliffe and others offer prayers at the opening sessions each morning. It’s a nice touch that may make them feel invested in the process or it may emphasize their exclusion when the table discussions and short speeches get going.  All week all of those I read have expressed frustration with Francis’s directive that participants not to share what goes on in the Synod hall. Anyone who has done group process or therapy knows that feeling safe is necessary if honest feelings are to be shared. While the Synod is not exactly therapy, sharing the deeply felt lessons of personal experience without fear is what it’s all about.

Gossip and gotcha are not the point. It’s hard to balance the expectations of journalists used to those who use the media to score political points with the safeguards requested by the Pope. It would be so much fun to know what Blatzing and Barron said to each other and their tablemates – Loup Besmond de Senneville writes about this especially odd couple in La Croix International. 

Remember how Francis railed against gossip among women – unfortunate stereotype – and in the Curia, where some of the most entrenched opposition to his papacy buzzes? No wonder he wants to tamp some of that down, but here in the US we know how complex maintaining a free speech environment is.

It’s also hard to discuss difficult topics with those who don’t agree. Besmond de Senneville writes that this week’s discussion moved on to the theme “A communion which shines forth,” which begins with some topics nobody is going to reject like charity or even ecumenism to “some more sensitive issues, as well. They include the relationship between ‘truth’ and ‘mercy,’ including accompaniment for ‘those who do not feel accepted in the Church,’ or ‘wounded’ by it, ‘such as the divorced and remarried, people in polygamous marriages, or LGBTQ+ Catholics.’” You can find all the discussion questions on pages 27-36 of this PDF of the Instrumentum Laboris. 

In talking to various Synod participants about their assessment of the process if not the content, Besmond de Senneville concludes, “if the insiders’ accounts are to be believed, strong opinions are rarely expressed.” Several find that the “start from personal experience…doesn’t necessarily encourage the debate of ideas, because an experience is, by its very nature, indisputable.” He goes on, 

This phenomenon, felt by several people in the room, gave rise to this rather strange reflection, when one considers that the Synod was described just a few days ago as the place of all potential explosions. 

“We’re going to have to bring out the tensions.” 

…Charged with summarizing the debates, the experts and theologians from around the world are tasked with constructing their texts in four parts: consensus, divergences, themes to be explored in greater depth and actions to be implemented immediately. 

This is very much the kind of process that Francis wants to encourage. It’s presenting a balanced assessment of where the church is, rather than the new doctrine some traditionalists are fearing. 

I’m not going to go on with lots of links, but if you’re interested, look in NCR, America, La Croix, even Crux, and you’ll see lots of women, mostly sisters, being interviewed. Maybe it’s the novelty of women who have an official voting or advisory role. 

My tightrope walking? I hate to admit that I’m very good at walking backwards. That may be because I’m not looking left or right, which is an apt metaphor for the most traditional. Online I look at the photos of the round tables, and do the simple math. 35 tables. 54 women. Not quite two at each, and many are sisters. Of course, 54 non-bishop men are also there, and some of them are priests. Are so few laity enough to overcome centuries of clericalism? 

At about minute 50 in the NCR podcast this week, former NCR editor Heidi Schlumpf talks with WOC executive director Kate McElwee. You can get even more than the 15 or so minutes of the podcast interview on the website. I’m not discouraging you from listening to the whole podcast; I just want to reinforce that we are so fortunate to have such women able to walk the tightrope of the Synod. They help me recover a perfect balance.