Synod on Synodality, 2024

  At the end of the Synod of Synodality in Rome, Pope Francis said it was now time for the synodal Church to makes sure all the words that were spoken were “accompanied by deeds.”   Calgary Bishop William McGrattan agrees. As president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the body that coordinates and promotes the Church’s teachings in Canada, he believes the experience was a way to get a jump-start in Canada about how to be a synodal church.   “Now we need to take the recommendations to the various levels of the Church in Canada — national, diocesan and parish,” said McGrattan, who was also a delegate from Canada at the synod assembly in Rome. “We need to work together to make them more concrete and specific.”   Read my wrap-up about the Synod and McGrattan’s commitment for Canada in my article at Canadian Affairs.  

I gathered way more information while in Rome at the Synod on Synodality than could be published in the Free Press. So I published some reflections on the week in my column last Saturday.   About things like how the need for the Roman Catholic Church to be more flexible around the issue of polygamy in Africa may open the door for a broader welcome for LGBTTQ+ people in Europe, the U.S. and Canada.   About the Canadian connection to Conversations in the Spirit—the new way Catholics around the world are being encouraged to be synodal with each other. (It’s called the “Canadian method.”)   About how the canonization of a new saint from Canada on the Sunday of the last week of the synod might have caused Canadian women advocating for greater leadership roles in the Church to shake their heads. ( Marie-Leonie Paradis of Quebec was known for her for her devotion to doing domestic chores for priests — things like cooking, cleaning and laundry.)   About the role play...

Pope Francis broke with papal tradition at the end of the final session of a month-long synod in Rome.   The Pope did not publish an exhortation — a stamp of approval — at the end of the gathering — as has been the practice of popes some days after other synods ended.   “What we have approved is enough,” he said. “There are already very concrete indications in the document that can be a guide for the mission of the Churches, on the different continents, in the different contexts. That is why I am making it immediately available to everyone.”   And yet, he added, the synod’s work is not finished. “There are and there will be decisions to be made,” the Pope said.   This includes the work of the 10 study groups, including groups on the role of women in the church and LGBTTQ+ Catholics, that are to report to him next year. Those groups “must work with freedom to offer me proposals,” the Pope said, adding this was not a way of “postponing decisions indefinitely.” ...

More than four years after it began, the Roman Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality ends Saturday. On March 7, 2020, Pope Francis announced the process that began with worldwide listening sessions leading to two month-long assemblies in Rome, one in October 2023 and the second this month to discuss the future of the Church.  T he past week has been one of long days as delegates pored over a draft of the final document, making more than 1,000 suggested revisions.   When they finally vote on it, it will then be up to the world’s almost 1.4 billion Roman Catholics to see how synodality — the process of journeying, listening and learning together — can be put into practice at diocesan and parish levels. Read about the ending of the synod,  including its controversies and acclaims, in the Free Press, along with a sidebar about why people who hope for big changes should brace themselves for a "cold shower."

  Due to space constraints, my story about how Catholic women are responding to news the role of women in the Church won't be discussed at the synod had to be shortened in the paper. The full article is below. The Free Press version can be found in the sidebar here. Catholic women in Canada are responding with disappointment to news there won’t be any discussion during this Synod on Synodality in Rome about the ordination of women as deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. That announcement was made Oct. 21 by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, who heads the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith . According to Fernandez, Pope Francis has indicated the matter of allowing women to become ordained deacons "is not mature at this time." Instead, he said that people interested in this topic could make submissions to a commission established by the Pope Francis in 2020 to study the subject. The synod concludes on Saturday; the final document from the delegates is expected t...

Like many gay Canadian Catholics, “Steven” — not his real name — was disappointed to learn a fuller acceptance of same-sex relationships would not be on the agenda during the Roman Catholic Church’s synod of bishops this month. The topic was originally set to be explored during this month’s Synod on Synodality in Rome, after worldwide consultation with Catholics three years ago. But fearing it might cause disunity in the synod, and the wider church, the topic was shunted off to a study group designed to explore “controversial” topics such as LGBTTQ+ welcome and affirmation. “I suppose we who are in the queer community should feel relief that the question of greater acceptance of our community has not been totally discarded,” said Steven, a closeted pastoral worker at a Catholic church in Canada. He asked not to say where for fear of being fired. But the reluctance of the church to deal openly with the question of greater acceptance of LGBTTQ+ Catholics is something that saddens...