Consequential
The Irish Synodal Pathway is finishing up its most consequential phase, with seven working groups now tasked with producing concrete proposals for the October assembly — but questions from others within the process have also been raised with this paper about how free the process actually is, and whether the bishops have quietly but decisively shaped the exercise on their own terms.
Others also involved have said to this paper that this shaping of the process was necessary to have a National Synod that would result in practical steps for an Irish Church looking for a clear way forward.
The Working Groups, whose membership list was only published reluctantly on May 13, months after they began meeting in March, have been given a mandate to develop what the National Synodal Team describes as “practical and actionable proposals for the Church in Ireland.”
That language, some observers note, carries significant implications: proposals deemed either impractical or beyond the remit of the Irish Church will, in effect, not make the final cut.
The structure of the groups themselves reflects a careful institutional architecture.
Each working group includes a bishop, a member of the National Synodal Team, and a subject-matter expert — an arrangement that, supporters argue, ensures theological rigour and prevents uninformed debate.
Others, however, see it differently.
The bishops, it is claimed, determined both the final list of the Working Groups and the ideas assigned to each group back in February, a decision that was made before the groups themselves had begun their work they say.
The timeline for the groups runs from March to the end of May, at which point recommendations go first to the National Steering Committee and then to the bishops themselves for final sign-off.
It is the bishops, ultimately, who will decide what proposals are put to a vote at the Synodal Assembly, scheduled for Saturday, October 17th in the Diocese of Meath.
Why would people working on behalf of the national Church and its future direction not want the people they represent to know who they are and whom they represent?”
The late publication of the membership lists has itself drawn scrutiny.
The National Synodal Team have asked that the Working Group members not be contacted directly by outside parties — a request interpreted as an attempt to prevent organised lobbying of individual participants.
While this is reasonable, this paper has requested that the organisations or parishes that the members of the Working Groups represent be made public – why would people working on behalf of the national Church and its future direction not want the people they represent to know who they are and whom they represent?
Transparency demands it.
LGBT
The decision to fold LGBT issues into a broader “Belonging” category rather than give it a standalone working group has been noted.
Those who argued for a dedicated category see it as a signal of episcopal direction; those within Church circles who supported the amalgamation point out that the category represents a relatively small proportion of the overall population and argue that singling it out would have distorted the process’s priorities.
Sources familiar with the episcopal discussions say the bishops faced a fundamental question at the outset: whether the synodal process would remain recognisably “Catholic” in its outcomes.
There was, according to one account, significant concern that the Working Groups could produce “a lot of hot air proposals” — ambitious resolutions untethered from what the Irish Church could practically implement. The inclusion of an expert on each group was intended precisely to ground the discussions.
Notably, conservative lay Catholic movements are more involved although many are said to have largely sat out the synodal process in its early years, (as did many clergy), giving the impression in some quarters that Synodality was a project of the Church’s more progressive wing.
A counter argument would say that they sat out the Synodal process instigated by the Irish bishops and then the Pope and left the rest of the faithful to do the heavy lifting.
Their more active engagement now, sources suggest, reflects having arrived at the conclusion that it’s not a ‘talking shop’, the process actually matters and that the institutional Church is their Church too and they need to have a voice in discussions on its future.
The net effect, some observers say, amounts to a reining-in of a process that had initially appeared open-ended. Others say that’s an unfair interpretation”
One of the most prominent issues to emerge over the last two years has been the proposal that the Irish National Synod would recommend to the Pope to keep the issue of women’s ordination open for discussion.
In the seven Working Groups, one is dedicated to the issue of Women and of its ten members seven are women.
It will be interesting to see how that unfolds under the watchful eyes of Bishop Kevin Doran who said during the recent discussion on women deacons in The Irish Catholic, that the question of women deacons should not deflect from what is already possible for lay women and men in ministry and leadership in the Church.
The net effect, some observers say, amounts to a reining-in of a process that had initially appeared open-ended.
Others say that’s an unfair interpretation and that open-ended discussions have been going on for several years now, the bishops always warned against a ‘talking shop’ and the Church urgently needs a practical plan. Whether that represents responsible stewardship or a narrowing of genuine discernment probably depends on your overall point of view.
What the Working Groups structure has done is put a mix of committed Catholics around the table discussing and debating with each other, and with a bishop, which is the essence of what synodality is all about.
And that’s a positive start for the October Synod.