This final phase of the rather mysteriously titled ‘Synod on Synodality’ is taking place until 27 October and it may suggest doctrinal changes to Church teaching.
The first phase took place last October and a final document from the Synod will be presented to the Pope early next year.
The Pope will then later issue his own final text based on the Synod’s discussions.
While the first phase of the Synod addressed issues such as the place of LGBTQ+ people within the Church and whether women should be ordained, these topics have since been sent out to study groups to consider.
These groups are due to report back next June, meaning any decision won’t be taken until then.
However, the group looking at whether women should be ordained this week said that while the study remains open, “based on the analysis conducted so far… there is still no room for a positive decision regarding the access of women to the diaconate”.
Kate McElwee, the executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, said that “while many have attempted to silence the conversation on women’s ordination, dismiss our work as ‘lobbying,’ or relegate the discernment into the shadows, we are determined to be visible”.
Pope Francis had said that taking these issues off the table would help Synod members to focus more on the “mission of the Church” and how to increase participation.
This week, he also called on members to “be careful not to see our contributions as points to defend at all costs or agendas to be imposed” and added that participants should not “seek to advance their own causes or agendas without listening to others”.
However, groups partaking in the Synod have said it is “inevitable that these issues will come up in discussions”.
Indeed, the term LGBTQ+ didn’t appear in the synthesis document arising from the first phase of the Synod.
This document was voted on line by line, and it’s understood the term LGBTQ+ was left out because of concerns that any paragraph including it would not get the two-thirds vote required due to opposition from African and Eastern European bishops.
Julianne Moran is the general secretary of the Irish Synodal Pathway and speaking to The Journal last year, she said: “I can understand the upset for people that the actual title LGBTQ+ didn’t appear in the document, but sexual identity as a question did.”
‘Need for radical change’
The Synod assists the Pope with its counsel and “consider questions pertaining to the activity of the Church in the world”.
The word “synod” means “assembly” and Pope Francis describes it as “journeying together”.
This is the 16th Synod and for the first time, women and laypeople have a vote in the assembly.
While the majority of the 368 voting members are bishops, 70 are non-bishop members and 54 of these are women.
The current synod was formally announced in March, 2020 and the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics were invited to express their views on the Catholic Church and its challenges to help guide the institution through the 21st Century.
Insights from local parishes feed into national documents, which in-turn were distilled into continental documents presented at the Synod.
Topics addressed in the first phase included issues such as the place of LGBTQ+ people within the Church, whether women should be ordained, and whether married men can serve as priests in regions with insufficient clergy.
A letter from Pope Francis in February remarked that these issues “require in-depth study” which is not possible to do this month during the second session of the Synod.
The Pope said the study groups should contain “Pastors and Experts from all Continents to take part in them.”
He added that they should take into “consideration the most relevant current experiences in the local Churches”.
It’s likely Pope Francis will issue the final Synod text after receiving the study group reports in the summer.
A group that supports LGBTQ Catholics, DignityUSA, said that while it is “inevitable that these issues will come up in discussions, we recognise that specific proposals will not come out of October’s deliberations”.
But DignityUSA questioned how diverse the study groups are and added that the Synod process has “exposed the need for truly radical changes in our Church”.
Penitential vigil
A Penitential Vigil presided over by Pope Francis took place in St Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday on the eve of the Synod.
The Vigil “requested forgiveness for sins of abuse, sins against women, and sins of using doctrine as stones to be hurled”.
There were testimonies of war, sexual abuse and migration.
The testimony about sexual abuse came from Laurence, a South African man who was abused at the age of 11 by a priest.
“One beautiful South African morning, he took me by the hand to a dark place where, in shuddering silence, he took from me what should never be taken from any child,” he told St. Peter’s Basilica and the pontiff during the service.
“My story is one of many, and it is by sharing these experiences and facing them fearlessly that we shed light on this particular perfidious darkness,” said Laurence.
He said the “reluctance to address these crimes openly has been a disservice to the victims and a betrayal of the Church’s ethical and spiritual responsibilities” and that a “key factor in the crisis is a lack of transparency within the Church”.
Francis said the service was intended “to begin to heal wounds that never stop bleeding.”
“We ask forgiveness, feeling ashamed, from those who have been hurt by our sins,” said the Pope.