The Synod and the Church’s future: what Catholics want

VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
La Croix International [France]

April 25, 2023

By Loup Besmond de Senneville

Bishops and lay people have held continental meetings to prepare the agenda for the Synod assembly in October.

Their reports reveal a diversity of opinions and hopes for reform.

The expectations that Catholics from all over the world have expressed about the future of the Church during the ongoing synodal process have been boiled down into nearly 200 pages.

The General Secretariat of the Synod gathered a group of theologians in Rome from April 12-19 to examine those pages, which include the reports that bishops and lay people drafted over the past few months during continental or regional assemblies. These texts will be used to draw up the Instrumentum laboris (or working document) for the next international assembly of the Synod in October. The new document is expected to be made public sometime in May.

And what is it likely to say? First of all, Catholics are looking for Church reform, something that seems necessary in order to respond to secularization and other issues that all societies have in common – such as climate change, violence and war.

Attention to the “margins”

Each continent has identified “tensions” that the Church must face, even within its own borders. Among the seven identified by the Europeans, we find, for example, the liturgy, the articulation between the hierarchical Church and the synodal Church, between global and local.

The sexual abuse crisis and the questions concerning the Church’s credibility are also cited, as in North America. The theme of inclusion for those from the “margins” is very present, but their definition differs according to the continents: homosexuals in Europe, polygamists in Africa and in Oceania, women and young people everywhere.

Among these “tensions”, we note in particular the one that balances “mercy” and “truth”.

“Young people want a Church that is close to people, including those on the margins, open to the problems of separated and remarried people, LGBTQIA+ people,” say the Slovenian representatives, quoted by the European report. “But they also want the Church to say clearly that not everything is acceptable! So the Church must listen, but also tell the whole truth with a lot of love!”

More room for women

The role of women is also one of the central issues in these reflections. All the reports express the desire to give women more responsibility and to ensure that they can take part in decision-making processes.

When proposing methods for addressing this issue, the recommendations vary: the writers of the Middle East report ask for “serious reflection” on female diaconate: some members from Oceania propose their ordination as priests.

Faced with these tensions, Catholics around the world are defining “priorities,” but these vary greatly from continent to continent.

The authors of the African report advocate fighting against “economic colonialism”, while the South Americans want to renew “the preferential option for the poor”. The theme of inculturation of the liturgy, and thus its adaptation to local sensibilities, is particularly present in Africa and Oceania.

Through these reports, the Church seems to be accepting, for the first time publicly – at least on such a scale – real internal divergences. For example, the European report the Albanians express the fear that “inappropriate reform of the Church will undermine the Gospel message”.

“We believe that it is not right for the Church to adapt to the ‘world’ in order not to feel persecuted or not be considered ‘old-fashioned’,” reads the report, which was prepared in Prague.

“We are not only in a multipolar world, but also in a multipolar Church,” said Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the Synod’s secretariat, at an April 20 press conference.

And the Catholic Church will now have to begin dealing with this accepted diversity as the Synod prepares for its general assembly next October in Rome.

https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/the-synod-and-the-churchs-future-what-catholics-want/17701