Synod and Synodality at Risk

 The Synod on Synodality, called by Pope Francis in 2021 to explore how the Church will move forward in the 3rd millennium, seeks to explore just what "synodality" should look like, and how it should work when it solicits the thoughts of all the people of God, including the laity, which is unprecedented in the history of the Synod of Bishops since its beginning in the Second Vatican Council. "Synodality" itself is the subject of this "walking/journeying together," as the word "synod" is translated from the Greek (syn, "with" and [h]odos, journey; we can hear this term in the name of the Book of Exodus [ex, out, odos, "journey, going forth"]). The Synod has had a spotty record; perhaps one need look no further that its dismal failure to detect and effectively address the sexual abuse scandal. As things stand now, the Synod has been extended one year (originally envisioned to wrap things up in October 2023), to the end of 2024. The German experience has underscored that even under rigorous preparation, people will be people.

The pope has expressed disappointment and dismay over how synodality has unfolded in Germany. The German "synod," not really a synod at all, began in 2019 to test the limits of the process, perhaps not its stated intent, but certainly its effect. The "Synodal Way" in Germany has already embraced solutions to the most divisive issues facing today's Church, and it is prepared to announce paths to same-sex marriage, special accommodations to LGBTQ, priestly celibacy, among other hot-button issues in its final meeting scheduled for March 2023.

According to the vademecum designed for the global Synod on Synodality, the synodal process is far from a wandering in the desert. The synod is led by none other than the Holy Spirit itself, an infallible guide that cannot lead astray. Each official step on the path is inaugurated by the invocation of the 3rd person of the Trinity: Adsumus Sancte Spiritus, which orders the participants to the lead of the Spirit. The German experience tells us that the human spirit can trump the Holy Spirit. It's difficult to speak of a dark side of the human spirit, as the term always has both positive denotations and connotations. Nonetheless self-interest, not the interests of the universal church, seems to have driven much of what the German bishops have heard and what they are prepared to suggest to Rome. Guided by the human spirit, the bishops have heard the call of those whom the Church seems to have marginalized; they can feel the hunger for belonging, the hunger for communion, the hunger for the Eucharist. It seems the German bishops have conflated the human spirit and the Holy Spirit. The poignancy of such a moment can be quite powerful; yet the authentic synodal way calls first and foremost for discernment, especially discernment of the Spirit. And there's the rub.

The Synod on Synodality is at risk for devolving into precisely what the vademecum warns against: a parliament of aggrieved voices and a cacophony of needs and wants, a coffee-table book on coffee tables. Perhaps it's difficult to take the Holy Spirit seriously, especially at a time when discernment is something seriously catechized people used to do in the past, but is now a step easily missed or otherwise abused.

Perhaps a Synod on Discernment would have been a better place to begin, even better that the more obviously logical focus on synodality itself. What one says, what one hears, how one says, and how one hears presuppose a process of meaningful and effective discernment. Renew the face of the earth? We need to renew our hearts, empty a tad of our human spirit to accommodate the one revealed Spirit. Perhaps then the path on earth will find a clearing where renewal can flourish.