Julieann Moran: Greetings to you all from Rome!
The final document from the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod has been published this evening and is available below. I had the privilege of being at the final moments of the assembly tonight and got the opportunity to hear the Holy Father also announce that he would not be issuing a post-synodal exhortation, but is choosing instead to directly implement the document as it stands.
Link to Final Document:
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The early Church was very brave. In spite of strong resistance and divisiveness it made the courageous decision that a person didn’t have to become a Jew first to become a follower of Jesus and his Gospel. If that decision was not made, Christianity would have remained a sect within Judaism.
The courage of the early Church has been sadly missing in the Roman Synod in that it has shunned an amazing opportunity of making a brave decision in proclaiming the equality of women in all its dimensions; in ministries, decision-making and governance. Because of their gender, women in the Catholic Church are condemned to remaining second-class citizens.
I entered the process of the Synod with an open mind daring to believe that this would finally open our minds to the absolute importance of the equality of women for the furthering of the Gospel and the survival of the Catholic Church. Instead, it paid lip service to women and insulted them to the highest degree. It keeps on reminding all of us that we can’t have equality as promised in our Baptism.
Christ never made gender an issue. He never made rules about what women can or can’t do. These rules about women come from Rome not from Christ. I am utterly devastated that this Synod process has not brought the Church to a place of equality, dignity and justice. A large proportion of my parishioners, both men and women, recognize this.
Once again, women have been sidelined. Shame on the whole process. Words are cheap. The flowery 51 pages of this Synod Report (no woman is referenced in the Abbreviations (page 2) of this Report!) are a smoke screen to disguise that the Catholic Church/ Rome will never in my lifetime see women called to equality of their Baptism which is so richly theirs. The Synod has once again shown itself to be misogynistic, and it is incomprehensible in this present age that it has failed to recognize and tackle this.
Thank you for putting into words what l deeply feel, Roy. Because of a sense of shame born of an ingrained, misguided loyalty to the institutional Church, l feel guilty about owning my alienation, anger and resentment. However, hope must not be lost and personal recognition of equality of male and female as images of God and followers of Christ will only be strengthened by the almost laughable attempts by the powers in Rome to try to convince us that they too recognise this. There is no male or female in Christ, yet the only “place” where l experience this to be totally untrue is in the Catholic Church.
No EQUALITY found at Synod
Despite high initial hopes for the Synodal process, it reverted back to the patriarchal Father-knows-best hierarchical model. There is no agreed process for the selection and participation of laity and in particular women at future Synods.
Taking the 10 Study topics out of the Synod and excluding the discussion of women in ordained ministries totally undermined the Synodal Process.
The urgently needed reforms in our church will come from local communities and churches and not from Rome. The decentralisation proposals in the final Synod document may facilitate these reforms.
Very, very well stated, Roy, Miriam and Colm.
I too had such high hopes for the Synod and the whole synodal process.
I had such faith in Francis.
So, now, sadly, such a disappointment.
There is no acknowledgement in the document itself of the depth of the chasm of distrust caused by the failure – over generations – to implement what earlier documents clearly heralded.
For me the classic example of this is Lumen Gentium 37 – which spoke of the right and duty of lay people to speak their minds ‘through the institutions established by the Church for that purpose’. That was on 21/11/1964 – so why even now is there apparently an expectation that anyone will take this ‘Final Report’ of the 16th Synod, dated 26th October, 2024 – six decades later – at face value?
This chasm between aspirational pious literature in the church – and what historically transpires (or doesn’t) – is an insidious form of institutionalised hypocrisy.
And I fear that I find exactly the same chasm in ‘Dilexit Nos’ paragraph 6, as follows:
“6. This interior reality of each person is frequently concealed behind a great deal of “foliage”, which makes it difficult for us not only to understand ourselves, but even more to know others: “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse, who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). We can understand, then, the advice of the Book of Proverbs: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life; put away from you crooked speech” (4:23-24). Mere appearances, dishonesty and deception harm and pervert the heart. Despite our every attempt to appear as something we are not, our heart is the ultimate judge, not of what we show or hide from others, but of who we truly are. It is the basis for any sound life project; nothing worthwhile can be undertaken apart from the heart. False appearances and untruths ultimately leave us empty-handed.”
‘Mere appearances, dishonesty and deception’ is a perfect description of the behaviour of a magisterium that hid clerical sex abuse of children for generations, so where was the ‘honest heart’ of the church back then? Isn’t that where ‘Accountability and Transparency’ need to begin, if any current documents are to be taken seriously?
False appearances and untruths have indeed left the ‘magisterium’ empty-handed – bankrupt of credibility – and no mere literary production, however ‘high flown’, can fix that problem.
The 16th Synod has ended without the slightest sign of recognition of this yawning Grand Canyon of Credibility now facing all who want to be ‘synodal’ – but cannot be sure that even yet they are not simply being gaslighted.
It is thoroughly disheartening to see the much-trumpeted synodal process end in such a morass of hypocrisy and paralysis. Rather than bring the church over a new threshold, the entire expensive adventure has set the church back, burying the idea of synodality for another sixty years. If a group whose role and rights have been stressed by an Ecumenical Council — the laity — are treated with such indifference and contempt, and if another group constituting half the human race are regarded as a foreign species to be fobbed off with suave diplomacy, what chance have lgbt folk (especially transgender persons) of being heard, respected, protected by Mother Church?
I understand Roy and all who have commented. I agree with much of what has been written. However, I also have some problems with the frustration and exasperation expressed, and at times, the certainty of the language used.
The Synod is a process. It is a way of doing things. It is a new method of dealing with the business of faith. There was never any chance of an agreed document evolving. It wasn’t that type of gathering. We cannot expect a decisive conclusion.
This is the ‘Catholic’ church. The mentalities are very different and we enrich each other with the colour of our faith. The Synod was an attempt to blend the views. To listen. To reflect. To let the Sprit loose. It was a round-table process. That is very new. It is very important. It was Communion in action. The rest of us have to learn how to do it. And then to do it locally.
I was thinking back on some of those international meetings I attended. (General Chapters etc). There weren’t just cultural or linguistic differences but at times we seemed to speak in parallel lines, which guaranteed we would never meet. Some of us found that the Dutch, Germans, Belgians, Australians and English appeared to understand one another. The Asians looked at things in a very new way. The South Americans had a plethora of attitudes. (I missed out on much because of my lack of other languages.) The Africans were a total other story. At times we spoke English but our understanding was rather different. The Americans spoke the same language but many of us were very aware that English as a common language meant something totally opposite to what the Americans had to say. They were very fixed and rigid in their understanding. We seemed at times to have less in common with these English speakers than we did with many others. They missed the greys of life. We were shocked. (I can understand somewhat how divided politically they are and how stupid much of it seems to be with Trump and Harris). The Indians and Philippians were lovely but had a faith which was rather devotional and unlike where we were.
I now return to the Synod. I recall what Mission life was like in the past. We imported a Roman version of God and worship. As time went on, we began to realise that these people were in touch with God in a rather different way. We were the learners. And only then could Mission life begin.
I hesitate to say this but some of the expectations expressed (above) in regard to women in ministry; in regard to gender issues; in regard to many issues that seem obvious to us, simply are not quite immediately uppermost in the minds of other nationalities. We have to be patient. We have to wait. We cannot begin again to import our ideas of faith (ministry, etc.) and impose them on others. Synod means a very slow and very patient listening to each other and to the Spirit. The Round Table demands we don’t rush or be so adamant that we always know best. We are forever learners in faith. Others can teach us. That is despite the reality that I agree with Roy, but I slow down any rush to certainty. We walk together. We wait for each other. We listen and learn.
Seamus Ahearne osa
PS To comment No 7.
I meant to add this but I forgot to do so:
We are doing a painting job in the Church here. We struggled to agree colours. We questioned each other’s taste. Eventually we reached a compromise. The new colours were done yesterday. I think none of us like the end result! None of us got our wishes. We had discussed this serious issue thoroughly together. It may even have been in a Synodal way! I am really amused at the end result. This little unimportant story might apply to the Synodal meeting.
The Final Document attempts to give a feel of concrete achievement by listing specific items, none of which is particularly striking.
“The areas of the life and mission of the Church that they have already begun to study in depth are the following:
1. “Some aspects of the relationship between the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Church.” Hardly the most difficult ecumenical chestnut — the chasms between the other Eastern Churches and the Latin Church remain.
2. “Listening to the Cry of the Poor.” A cliché, long after the disappearance of Liberation Theology and even the disappearance of the Church’s Social Teaching from everyday preaching and episcopal teaching.
3. “The mission in the digital environment.
4. The revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis in a missionary synodal perspective.
5. Some theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms.
6. The revision, in a synodal missionary perspective, of the documents touching on the relationship between bishops, consecrated life, and ecclesial associations.”
Why the mammoth synodal process for these issues, which will likely be handled quite independently of that process?
7. “Some aspects of the person and ministry of the bishop (in particular: criteria for selecting candidates to the episcopacy, the judicial function of the bishops, the nature and structure of ad limina Apostolorum visits) from a missionary synodal perspective.
8. The role of Papal Representatives in a missionary synodal perspective.
9. Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues.”
Issues, or people?
10. “The reception of the fruits of the ecumenical journey of the People of God.”
Then, after this attempt at specificity, the document launches into a meditation on John 21 and a rerun of the ecclesiology of Vatican II. One gets no sense that the people of God, expensively consulted (an expense of flagging spiritual energy and enthusiasm), are speaking in this document. Who, indeed, is speaking?
The document is “guided by the Gospel Resurrection narratives.” But who framed it in this way? Did the Synod agree collectively to take this tack? Or is it some imaginative last-minute drafter?
“The race to the tomb on Easter morning, the appearances of the Risen One in the Upper Room and on the lakeshore inspired our discernment and enriched our dialogue. We invoked the Easter gift of the Holy Spirit, asking Him to teach us what we must do and show us the way forward together.”
Is this a factual description of how the synod participants talked with one another or is it a flowery rewriting of the history?
“With this document, the Assembly recognises and bears witness that synodality, a constitutive dimension of the Church, is already part of the experience of many of our communities. At the same time, it suggests pathways to follow, practices to implement and horizons to explore. The Holy Father, who convened the Church in Synod, will tell the Churches, entrusted to the pastoral care of the bishops, how to continue our journey supported by the hope ‘that does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5).”
But the Holy Father seems to have signed off from this expectation, since he accepts the Final Document as sufficient.
Instead of enacting anything new, the document just highlights the “synodality” that is already “a constitutive dimension of the Church” (even if in practice one finds no trace of it).
The word “women” occurs often in the document, but mostly in variants of the phrase “men and women.” The document does state, in one of its rare relatively specific utterances: “We bear witness to the Gospel when we seek to live in relationships that respect the equal dignity and reciprocity between men and women. The widely expressed pain and suffering on the part of many women from every region and continent, both lay and consecrated, during the synodal process, reveal how often we fail to live up to this vision.’ Paragraph 60 is devoted to the equality of women. The problem is that these utterances are voiced from a place above the fray, and will be heard as just more Vatican-speak, and as little more than a sop.