UPDATE: While there is little evidence that the American Bishops are doing anything about the Synod, the situation is very different south of the border.
LIMA, PERU — Tens of thousands of Catholics throughout Latin America and the Caribbean — and some in the United States — have been discussing issues ranging from missionary discipleship to integral ecology as part of a "listening" process leading up to a regionwide ecclesial assembly to be held Nov. 21-28 in Mexico City.
About 1,000 people are expected to participate virtually in the assembly, Lozano said, including 200 bishops, 200 priests and deacons, 200 religious and 400 laypeople from various groups and ministries. Those participants will hold virtual meetings, breaking into smaller sessions, sometimes by vocation and sometimes in mixed groups.
A group of about 50 participants, broken down in the same proportions, with 40% laypeople, will meet in person in Mexico City, where they will also connect with the virtual groups.
A delegation of 70 U.S. Hispanic Catholics — consisting of 10 bishops, 10 priests and deacons, 10 religious, 30 laypeople and 10 Hispanics "from the periphery" — will also participate,
MAYBE THE HISPANICS WILL TEACH US HOW TO DO IT!
Austen Ivereigh asks "Has your parish priest mentioned anything? " I searched our diocesan website and found absolutely nothing. No mention of the appointment of a diocesan point person or task force, nor any announcement of the beginning of the diocesan phrase on October 17th of this year. Will that be an October surprise?
"The most far-reaching event in the Catholic Church in my lifetime officially gets its start next month. It is Pope Francis’s boldest move yet, .... and potentially the most transformative moment in Catholicism since the Second Vatican Council, which it seeks to embed permanently into the life of the Church.
So far I have found Ivereigh the best biographer on Francis. I think his prediction may be right on target, and that "stealth" is built into the design, for the Church to be caught up into synodality before it knows it.
Preparing for the synod on synodality
By Austen Ivereigh
September 16, 2021
As a planner I looked at the nuts and bolts of the process.
A diocesan phase begins this October and ends with a ten page document that goes to the National Bishops Conference and to Rome this coming April!!! Almost no time for any bishop to get his act together let alone for the American bishops to get their acts together.
All these ten page papers from around the world will be used to form a First Working Document that will be ready by September 2022 for a round of "continental" synods who will provide input into a Second Working Document which will be ready for the World Synod of Bishops meeting in October 2023. That will be followed by a two year implementation phase. One can bet that phrase will result in more diocesan, national, regional and continental synods!
So we will have a period of bishops meetings about as long as Vatican II focused not on content but rather on the process of synodality.
There is a saying among corporate planners that we do the planning process the first time just to do it, we do it the second time to get it right, and we do it the third time to do it well. We are certainly being given the time not only to think about the process but to actually do it and become good at it.
Very few dioceses around the world are going to do it right much less well by April of the coming year. But there will be a document and there will be a process that everyone everywhere can critique. Some dioceses may actually do it very well, many more may begin to acquire a taste for doing it better.
Whatever happens in the first diocesan phrase we know that the topic and process will not go away. Francis has turned the whole synod process from several weeks of the dullest meetings possible in Rome (dreaded by bishops and journalist alike because the results were completely predictable) into high drama. What is going to happen?
This is definitely not the usual corporate planning process to be perfected and enshrined in document after document. No, it is a new way of being church, or rather a very old way of being church brought into the modern age of global communication.
From the early church through much of the middle ages synods and councils abounded. Even the Baltimore Catechism and the commitment to parish schools were forged in Plenary Councils of the American Church.
In some ways we are stepping back from the corporate "hierarchical" model of Church government brought about in the West by modernity to the premodern "primus inter pares" model in which many people as well as the people as a whole had a great deal to say about what constitutes "tradition." The Orthodox have preserved tradition without the need for the excessive central government that has shaped the modern papacy.
Are we going to able to do imitate the Orthodox while maintaining the dynamism and innovations that have characterized Western Christian institutions. In particular are we going to be able to shape a universal church that has to respond to the very different situations on the very different continents of the world. The early church fractured along Roman, Byzantine, Semitic, and Coptic cultural lines. So the stakes are high.
This transformation of the Church is not only taking place across the world horizontally but also vertically within each local church.
“While the Synod of Bishops has taken place up until now as gathering of bishops with and under the authority of the Pope, the Church increasingly realizes that synodality is the path for the entire People of God.” That means making pastoral decisions “that reflect the will of God as closely as possible, grounding them in the living voice of the People of God.”
These transformations may not create as many new content documents as Vatican II but they will constitute a greater change than Vatican II.
I don't see anything on our archdiocesan website explaining how we will go about the synodal process in this diocese. And my guy, Cardinal Cupich, generally is perceived to be a "Francis bishop".
ReplyDeleteFWIW, here are the items featured on our diocese's website at the moment:
* "Have you gotten your flu shot yet?", with a link to a news release urging Chicago Catholics to get a flu shot
* "Premios buen Samaritanos", which links to information about a Good Samaritan Award, for which it seems that a Hispanic parishioner can be nominated from each parish
"Make a Difference with the Annual Catholic Appeal". This is an archdiocesan fundraiser
"50th Anniversary of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development". I suppose most of us are familiar with the controversies around CCHD.
"Who Will Fill These Shoes?" - an even designed to call eligible men to the priesthood
"Support Your Parish" - exactly what it sounds like: a way to raise funds for individual parishes.
On the whole, these initiatives have a local focus. Synodality seems to call us to raise our eyes above our local parish or diocese and look to the flourishing of the entire church.
If the uptake of this synodal process is inconsistent across dioceses and national conferences, then whoever participates, "wins". Their voices will be the ones that are heard. It's like an election: if you don't vote, then don't complain about our elected officials.
I suppose it's not deeply insightful to note that the church event which has driven the most change and reform - and improvement! - in the church during our lifetimes is the 2nd Vatican Council. That wasn't a synod, it was a council.
ReplyDeleteUndoubtedly, what has transpired in the church since the council is not what the council fathers envisioned in every particular. Perhaps it's fair to say that we have fallen short of the council's vision. Of the many reasons for this, I am sure that one of them is simply the limits of top-down governance; leaders can't completely control the people they lead. But a good deal of positive change has happened as a result of the council, from liturgy to ecumenism to relations with Judaism to the cascading outward of Catholic social teaching into the body politic.
I wonder if Francis needs to call a council to get synodality properly launched. I sense that people at all levels of the church don't understand synodality, don't really know what it is, don't understand their role in it, and haven't had their imaginations fired by what could be accomplished. There is no ready analogue in our secular lives for it. Synodality isn't how we run our communities, our corporations, or even our families.
I wonder if Francis needs to call a council to get synodality properly launched. I sense that people at all levels of the church don't understand synodality, don't really know what it is,……Synodality isn't how we run our communities, our corporations, or even our families.
DeleteThe closest thing that I have experienced to synodality is the somewhat related concept of primus inter pares leadership as expressed by Greenleaf in Servant Leadership. After his first essay on the “Servant as Leader” he wrote a second essay “The institution as Servant” in which he advocated that the top levels of institutions, the board of trustees, and the senior management each operate as groups of equals led by a primus rather than in a hierarchical structure. Few have taken up Greenleaf’s idea.
Fortunately I experienced it before I read Greenleaf’s book and done by people who had no idea that they were doing it. The first experience was my four years spent as a member of a mostly voluntary pastoral staff when I lived in the eighties in Toledo. We were all very different in our talents and in our spiritualities.
We had a Black woman public grade school teacher as our social justice minister. We had a union shop steward as our youth minister. We had a guy who worked in the maintenance department of the newspaper who organized a voluntary maintenance group for the parish. They took care of little jobs, evaluated everything for preventive maintenance and eventual replacement, and analyzed any major problems before putting them out for bids. A woman who had been transformed by the lost her daughter to suicide led the women’s organization. A husband and wife who gave marriage encounters led our RENEW program. The deacon and woman religious who was pastoral associate were both part of charismatic renewal. Several people had taken part in Cursillo.
We met every other week. We spent the first half hour in prayer led each session by one of us. For example when I did mine I organized a creative prayer session based on liturgical texts often including music from my collection.
Without ever consciously trying to do it, we deeply valued each other’s talents and spirituality, and supported each other. That included the pastor who not only valued all the talents and spiritualities but also recognized that he should only contribute his talents and spirituality and not try as in a hierarchical system to organize the rest of us.
For example when we inaugurated the RENEW program the question arose who else besides our two RENEW leaders should be a part of the core group. Someone proposed that I be included. The pastor simply went around the staff asked each person for their opinion, said nothing in response until everyone had finished their opinions then turned to me and said “Dearest brother, you do so much for us, can you possible do this too.” That was primus inter pares leadership but it was also a synodal process. Not a vote, not a decision by one person but a manifestation of the Spirit accepted by everyone.
While I knew that my experience on pastoral staff was very special, related to the charismatic Pauline communities and the Jerusalem church, I had not read Greenleaf’s book but recognized my parish experience when I did read it.
Great insight, Jack, that synodality is a form of servant leadership.
DeleteIn your experience with the Society of Jesus, did you see synodality at work within the Society? I have read that the order makes decisions using a somewhat similar method. But perhaps they are more hierarchical than I perceive. I am thinking that Francis, as a Jesuit and a Latin American, probably is much more immersed in the spirituality of synodality than a guy like me whose background is in the Irish/European-influenced church in the US.
Jesuit spirituality is grounded on the Spiritual Exercises.
DeleteThe purpose of the thirty day retreat was discernment of important decisions in the spiritual life such as a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. While normally spiritual directors should do things like encourage people to such vocations, in the exercises Ignatius explicitly said that those who give the exercises were to propose brief points and considerations but were to let the retreatant alone with God so that the Spirit might act. The role of the giver of the retreat was to assist the person especially in interpreting consolations and desolations (motions of the Spirit) that the person might experience during the retreat. Early on Ignatius was brought before the Inquisition precisely because the Exercises sounded all too Protestant.
Another point in the Exercises is that the giver of the retreat should always interpret anything that the retreatant says in a positive way according to the faith and not criticize him for unorthodox formulations of faith and doctrine, but rather restate the person’s expressions in more orthodox terms. Again, a deep respect for the interior life of the person.
So the Jesuit tradition has built into it a strong emphasis upon the primacy of conscience, freedom and personal initiative. Manifestation of conscience to one’s superiors is an important part of the Jesuit tradition. One is obligated to express all one’s thoughts and emotions about how things are being done to one’s superiors, both the positive and the negative. This complete honesty about one’s interior life is very important, a kind of mini-version of synodality.
This listening to the spirit is very important in the General Congregations of the Society which are its supreme governing authority. They are called to elect a new Superior General as well as at other times to make policy. However once policy has been decided and a Superior General has been elected the authority structure is not very democratic. The Superior General appoints officers in the society, and there are very few democratic consultative requirements about how he and provincials make decisions.
Another part of Jesuit spirituality is that one should always presume permission. Ignatius love rules (standards) and was always writing rules (something like our modern goals and objectives) when he sent people on missions.
DeleteHowever Ignatius also recognized that rules had to be flexible, and that Jesuits were often placed in situations in which they could not consult him or their superiors. Hence when in doubt they should always follow the promptings of the Spirit and presume permission.
A lot of what the media interprets as Francis taking liberal positions (Whom am I to say?) are really expressions of his Jesuit values about conscience, spiritual freedom, and discernment.
"A lot of what the media interprets as Francis taking liberal positions (Whom am I to say?) are really expressions of his Jesuit values about conscience, spiritual freedom, and discernment."
DeleteAnother great insight!
I have to say: among the virtues I learned about in my own Catholic schooling, conscience, spiritual freedom and discernment were not high on the list. Heroic suffering, Catholic identity, personal holiness - yep, right near the top. Those others, not so much.
FWIW, my Catholic elementary school education took place in post-Vatican II years (late 60s, early-mid 70s), but it was so near the council that the council's themes, meaning and implications hadn't really been fully digested. All the adults in my life - parents, teachers, parish priests et al - were pre-Vatican II people who were wrestling with the liturgical changes, nuns' changing habits and - although I was oblivious to it at the time - birth control. To be sure, the meaning of the council still is unfolding in our time.
Comment today in NCR
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/just-catholic/pope-francis-wants-every-catholic-have-say-why-havent-us-catholics-heard
Jim, many of the Womens religious orders adopted a form of synodslity after Vatican II. While discerning their future path. Or maybe I am not getting the definition of synodality right.
ReplyDeleteAnne - I'm not especially knowledgeable about women's orders nor synodality, but I think your view here is exactly on point. From what I've observed, women's orders are very respectful of the points of view of its members - in fact, very respectful of the autonomy of their members in general.
DeleteEntitlement to respect for the autonomy of a member of the faith - a baptized person - should be presumed to have been conferred by virtue of our baptisms. Through baptism, each of us is a priest, prophet and king. If God is willing to grant us that exalted status, it seems the least church leaders can do is acknowledge it by their treatment of the baptized.
DeleteWe often discuss the topic of clericalism here. Perhaps this is one way to understand clericalism: when a privileged caste treats its own members as more exalted than all the baptized.
Anne said many of the Womens religious orders adopted a form of synodality after Vatican II. While discerning their future path.
ReplyDeleteYou are right on target. There are two excellent books.
Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America by John Fialka which gives nuns credit for all their work and their innovation throughout our history. They are a fine example of grassroots
leadership in both church and society.
Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church's Betrayal of American Nuns by Kenneth Briggs
Again emphasizing the unique role the women religious played in our country, occupying many roles far ahead of women in our society, Briggs writes
"Though Catholics were generally breathing the first whiffs of fresh air from the opening of the Vatican Council in 1962 American Sisters had been exercising a council of their own for some twelve years under the auspices of the Sister Formation Conference." They gladly accepted Vatican II's call to renew religious life by returning to their founder's charism. The betrayal was that they were never supported by American Bishops in their endeavors.
Briggs sees that lack of support as being responsible for the decline of women religious. That may seem far fetched. But if the bishops had supported women religious and had moved to do something like ordain them as deacons, think of how different our parishes and women's religious life would be if sisters from all sorts of ministries to also sorts of peripheries were regularly visiting and preaching in our parishes.
"But if the bishops had supported women religious and had moved to do something like ordain them as deacons, think of how different our parishes and women's religious life would be if sisters from all sorts of ministries to also sorts of peripheries were regularly visiting and preaching in our parishes."
DeleteIf/when the church decides that women may be ordained as deacons, speaking for myself, I'm ready to welcome them as siblings. As it pertains to religious orders, here's how I would think about it:
Just as there are diocesan priests and religious order priests, there are diocesan deacons and religious order deacons. If some members of women's religious orders are called by the church to the diaconate, then to me it seems logical that they would be ordained as religious order deacons (or, in case the church decides that female deacons are somehow a different holy order than male deacons, they would be ordained as whatever the analogue to male religious order deacons would be). By extension, it seems that lay women also could be ordained, not as religious order deacons but as diocesan deacons (or the equivalent, as noted above). I wouldn't expect that all religious order women would be made deacons, but it would be a path for those who are called to the diaconate.
Also to my way of thinking, the question of preaching is separate. The restriction of liturgical preaching to those in holy orders is (I think) a liturgical law which can be altered by the church. While the alteration/expansion of preaching "privileges" is not the no-brainer some folks seem to believe it to be, whatever challenges it may pose would seem to be solvable. Perhaps preaching could be an extension of the instituted lay ministry of lector/reader (which, again, could be open to women in religious orders - I assume it already is).
What I'm saying is, I think the question of a preaching "license" could be separated from the question of holy orders.
Yes, when Paul VI changed the old "minor orders" into two "commissioned lay ministries" of lector and acolyte he also said that bishops' conferences could ask Rome to establish additional ministries. Francis just did that when he established the additional ministry of catechist.
DeleteThe American bishops actually once floated the idea of an additional lay ministry of "preacher." It would probably be a good idea to separate this additional ministry from other ministries to maintain a focus on the qualities needed for a good preacher.
One of my ND scripture professors, Pheme Perkins, who has served as president of the Catholic Biblical Scholars, and adviser of the bishops, and who is very active in her parish nevertheless cannot preach at liturgy. She said however that she has preached in Protestant churches and received a stipend.
Jack, you've certainly had the privilege of being taught by some eminent scholars!
DeleteJack: One of my ND scripture professors, Pheme Perkins, who has served as president of the Catholic Biblical Scholars, and adviser of the bishops, ... cannot preach at liturgy. She said however that she has preached in Protestant churches and received a stipend.
ReplyDeleteI am a fan of Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC diocese, Bishop Maryann Budde, is also a Sr. Joan fan. As a result, she has invited her both to preach and to do the "adult forum" at the Washington National Cathedral. One Sunday, after the liturgy was over, they announced that people could ask Sr.Joan questions or make comments. A large number of people in the congregation that day were Catholic. One of them asked Sr. Joan when she, as a Catholic, could hear Sr. Joan preach in a Roman Catholic church? Why did she have to go to an Episcopal Cathedral to hear Sr. Joan preach? Rhetorical questions of course. Sr. Joan was very diplomatic in her response, but she also was very clear about the fact that the RCC is guilty of multiple sins against women in the ban on women as preachers, as well as the ban on women's ordination. She noted that the ban on women preaching is simply one among many other sins the RCC commits against women. But, she prays that someday the men who run the institution and declare doctrines that hurt people, thus sinning against them, will be enlightened. She does not expect this to happen during her lifetime, as she is now 85 years old.
Jack: Again emphasizing the unique role the women religious played in our country, occupying many roles far ahead of women in our society,.
ReplyDeleteThis was very true. It may have contributed to the large growth in the numbers of women who joined religious orders in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. I have had former nuns tell me that they joined because it was the only way they could get a college or specialist education during that era. Many men were pushed into the priesthood by their parents for the same reasons - the sons would receive a college education, be respected in their communities, and have absolute financial/job security forever - all very enticing to struggling immigrant families who also sometimes thought that they "owed" the church one of their sons and one of their daughters. Today, most priest vocations are in the developing world, and the reasons for them are very similar to the reasons that so many sons of immigrant families in the US became priests. Many third world families whose sons become priests also hope that their sons will be sent to Europe or the US to work because of the priest shortage in the west. Eventually they might be able to bring the rest of the family to the west.
"Though Catholics were generally breathing the first whiffs of fresh air from the opening of the Vatican Council in 1962 American Sisters had been exercising a council of their own for some twelve years under the auspices of the Sister Formation Conference." They gladly accepted Vatican II's call to renew religious life by returning to their founder's charism. The betrayal was that they were never supported by American Bishops in their endeavors.
Briggs sees that lack of support as being responsible for the decline of women religious.
This was probably one of the factors that led to the decline in numbers of women religious. But, as mentioned above, many women joined orders in order to gain an education and credentials to do the work that they wished to pursue. At that time, it was generally related to medical care and education. Women religious founded schools and hospitals and social service organizations and women who joined those orders automatically had a "career" path. A friend who had joined a nursing order told me that she had always wanted to be a nurse. She was from a dysfunctional family, and swinging an RN would be hard without family support. She joined the nursing order as soon as she graduated from high school. But after 9 years, facing final vows, she knew she really wanted to marry and have a family, so she left the order.
I was lucky to have been taught by several brilliant women religious when I was in college. Many of them left in the 70s and 80s. One who stayed and advanced to very high levels in the order and in the university left later - in the 90s. When visiting the university one year I saw her and asked her why she had left the order but remained at the university (after making it clear that I knew it was nosy to ask, and that if she didn't want to answer, I would fully understand). She told me that she wanted to pursue a higher education through the PhD and teach at the college/university level. She said that women were pretty much frozen out of PhD programs (her field was psychology) as well as frozen out of university level tenured teaching careers. The best way to achieve her goal was to join an order of women religious that operated schools and colleges. They could finish the BA level work at Catholic women's colleges, and often pursued the PhD level work at Catholic Univ if other universities didn't accept them into their PhD programs. All that began to change in the late 60s-70s. Doors that had been closed to women were opening, and women had choices that had not existed before. Although the many former women religious I have known also felt a draw to the spiritual side of religious life, the lure of the educational benefits was powerful, and often was the final push. Later,many left their orders
Jack said in a comment above, speaking of women religious, "They gladly accepted Vatican II's call to renew religious life by returning to their founder's charism. The betrayal was that they were never supported by American Bishops in their endeavors."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately lack of support from the hierarchy (and sometimes active exploitation and harassment) were patterns in American and European history. That is why, even though I pretty quickly got turned off by Mother Angelica's "brand", I had a grudging admiration for the way she refused to be intimidated by the bishops.
Angelica did not need to worry about bishops stopping her. She was selling their Uber conservative brand of Catholicism. Most of them, appointed by JPII and B16 precisely because they were Uber conservative and anti-VII, were fine with that. The liberal cardinal in LA, Mahoney, eventually tarnished by his record of protecting abusive priests, did force Angelica to apologize to him .
ReplyDeletehttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-dec-06-me-61273-story.html
I think Angelica and EWTN have been major factors, probably the primary factors, in accelerating and deepening the polarization in the American Catholic Church. The nuns who taught me in college were of a very different type than Angelica. I never discussed her with any of them, she hadn’t created her empire yet, but I’m quite sure that they would have strongly disagreed with Angelica’s form of Catholicism.
She was even different from the nuns who taught me in grade school.
DeleteAnne, I looked up the link and read about her sorta apology. I read it as "sorry not-sorry".
DeleteAnne, I looked up the link and read about her sorta apology. I read it as "sorry not-sorry".
DeleteYup. But she still had to come up with a "sorry" no matter how insincere.
Angelica and her media empire "ministry" did not help American Catholicism. She did a lot of work for the bishops - and far more people paid attention to her and EWTN, and still do, than they pay attention to the bishops. I'd be willing to bet that if the PTB gave a pop quiz asking Catholics the name of their bishop, with 10 seconds to answer, it might be a minority who could reply with the right name. I've known few Catholics (present company excepted) who paid the slightest attention to their bishops. It's really pretty much all about the parish.
In my mother's last two years staying with me, I had EWTN on for the daily mass. Luckily for me, she lost all interest in the rest of it. Fifteen minutes into the talk by Father Know-it-all, she'd fall asleep. If the Roman Catholic Church ever turns into an enclosed cult, it will be in no small measure to Mother Angelica's creation. EWTN has been to the Church what FOX Nooz has been to the USA.
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone is still checking these comments: there is a pretty good article in NCR about how US dioceses are planning to do their part in the synod process which kicks off in about three weeks:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncronline.org/news/parish/francis-set-open-worldwide-synod-process-us-dioceses-dont-seem-prepared