Category: Synodality

I have given so much space to supporting the Synod process, I think it’s about time to acknowledge that there are skeptics. Maybe that includes you, your friends and family, those you share liturgy with – lots of others. Who could not be a little skeptical after all we’ve been through? Joan Chittister opined a…
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The Synod process has created its own momentum, it seems. The publication of the Intstrumentum Laboris, which I began to discuss last week, has lured commentators into the arena, mostly online, I realize. Like me. But I’m not in the boys’ club. Ross Douthat in his New York Times newsletter uses the opportunity to blame…
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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…
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The panic was premature. They are talking about the Synod. Especially papal envoy Archbishop Christophe Pierre. Even USCCB President Broglio mentioned it. Bishop Cozzens, in explaining the Eucharistic Revival process in detail—2,400 parish point persons already! 25,000 registrants!—said it was kind of structured like a synod. (It’s actually structured like the corporation it is.) They’ve…
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Oh, our dear, impulsive Pope. I have long felt that if women could get Francis’ ear, we would see change. I wonder who got to him about women voting at the Synod. Maybe he saw the photo of the German Benedictines from 2018, and was reminded of the scandal of sisters who lead religious orders…
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[Mary Grace Puszka is a faith communications expert whose work has given her a window into the world of diverse faiths across the globe. She serves Episcopal Ministries of Long Island as communications manager. You can follow her on Twitter at @MGPuszka.] Sitting behind the cantor podium in a candlelit chapel adorned with poinsettia and pine,…
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Kate McElwee’s letter to WOC members commenting on the North American Final Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021-2024 Synod emphasizes that the use of the word “ordination” is in the context of the co-responsibility of all the faithful because of our baptism. Part of paragraph 19 says: While clarity is still needed around exactly what…
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We thought we were so smart. Forced to take Latin, we freshmen had a new word: “the Ides.” Or maybe it was because we were forced to read Shakespeare’s version. We knew to “Beware the Ides of March.” We understood the power of Roman conspiracy. “Et tu, Brute?” and all that. It may not seem…
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As daughters of Vatican II, my friends and I were energized by Pope Francis’s call for a Synod on Synodality. It was a chance for us to share our concerns—and our joys and our hopes—with one another and with the wider church. Since there were no synod meetings held at our parish, we formed our…
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Thursday, I learned that the cancer that killed my mother was not going to kill me, at least not yet. That made it hard to concentrate. In the month since the diagnosis and even surrounding the surgery, I could exist in denial and happily churn out blogs. But Wednesday this week, when there was so…
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