I get our parish newsletter each week. I try to read it but don't always succeed. I glanced through it this week and discovered our archdiocese is collecting Synod input from people via a website. After some explanatory information and a synod prayer, it invites people in the archdiocese to submit reflections on these statements:
for me Communion means…..
for me Participation means…..
for me Mission means…..
So I did. I can only hope someone reads them!
UPDATE 4/1/2022 3:51 pm CDT - I saw that one or two commenters asked for my responses. Here they are. These were a little (well, completely) off the cuff; I wouldn't apply the term "well thought out" to them.
Communion to me means unity. - all of us united in Christ. The world seemingly doesn't realize this: it is starving for communion:
* Our divisive politics reflects the reality of our divided society. Communion can heal these divisions
* Younger generations are staying away from the communal aspect of faith, and consequently, they are not receiving communion
* The war in Ukraine, in which religious divisions are playing a part, is a great scandal against communion with Jesus
Participation means living here in this world as a citizen of God's kingdom. Our participation in worship strengthens and symbolizes this participation, but it doesn't exhaust the possibilities of participation. We participate even more by serving those who are hungry or homeless or immigrants or refugees.
Mission happens first of all in the home. When we share our faith with one another in our families, we are fulfilling the church's mission.
Aren’t you going to share your responses? We’ll read them!
ReplyDeleteI second Anne's request for your responses. Place them as a revision to your post.
DeleteThe Preparatory Document for the Synod is the official outline of the process. It is available in two forms
!. The illustrated version if you like artwork, quotes etc.
https://www.synod.va/en/news/the-preparatory-document.html
The plain text version (just the text) The plain text version is about eleven pages.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/09/07/210907a.html
Communion, Participation and Mission are three key words that help to define the purpose of the synod.
This journey, which follows in the wake of the Church’s “renewal” proposed by the Second Vatican Council, is both a gift and a task: by journeying together and reflecting together on the journey that has been made, the Church will be able to learn through Her experience which processes can help Her to live communion, to achieve participation, to open Herself to mission.
I agree with Jean that the synod emphasizes processes, but it actually emphasizes social processes. It prefers that you go to a meeting and share your thoughts with others, and listen to them. Each of these meetings should result in a summary or synthesis of the consultation. These syntheses should be less than ten pages.
Now if you read the document very carefully it also says that anyone can send in a personal consultation at both the diocesan and universal levels. Yes you can send your thoughts to your bishop and also to the synod office in Rome! Does not give you much help in how to do that. However even if you do send something in at the diocesan level, it encourages some involvement in the social processes of the synod at the parish or diocesan level.
If you read the very fine print, any group (does not even have to be Catholic) can convene a listening session and send their results to the parish, or the diocese or to Rome.
The paper process is that all the syntheses (less than ten pages) from each parish or diocesan consultation get sent to the bishop, the diocese puts together a synthesis for the whole diocese. These are sent to Rome and the National Bishops Conference which also puts together it synthesis of the syntheses and sends it to Rome.
In terms of meetings there will be continental synods before the big synod in Rome. In our case this will be the American and Canadian bishops (Mexico is in with Latin America). In some ways I am more interested in the continental synod than in the big one.
I think the process is everything. If we really have the discussions, as many and varied, official and unofficial then we will have the beginning of grass roots synodality. Those processes will be better the more they are transparent, i.e. if we share all the group synthesis and also all the personal contributions than we can begin to know where we are on the journey. As the document admits, the paperwork itself is not that important, however if we are transparent about it then not only the paper but the meetings become important. I think parishes should be posting them on their websites.
Color me skeptical and a victim of too many academic sweat lodge type exercises. I think most processes take on a life of their own and bury people in rigmarole that ends with the self-congratulation by the process designers, and little of practical value.
DeleteJesus gave us the "process" we need to keep the faith alive in his teachings. The Church has added the examples of the saints and laid out the spiritual and corporal acts of mercy as guide for Christian activity.
No grass roots movement that I know of ever started with workbooks, discussion guides, schedules, and deadlines handed down from on high.
The link for individual synod interviews in the Lansing Diocese is not meant for people to express personal opinions (it says so on the form). It is also automatically linked to the email address if the collator.
DeleteI think the Lansing Diocese is trying to get parishes to appoint official listeners to gather the info and synthesize it, as Jack mentions. The latitude for cherry-picking seems pretty obvious. In parishes that fear closure, like the local parish, to what extent will collators want to select many (or any) disaffected to highlight a parish's failings?
When the diocese did a series of profiles of rural parishes several years ago to determine which would be closed, consolidated, etc., both Raber and I were surprised by the whitewash job done to make the parishes seem, um, "vibrant" was the buzzword, I think.
The report noted that "every woman in the parish is a member of the Altar Society." In reality, that meant that every woman was dogged for Altar Society dues once a year, but in fact only three Church Ladies were involved in seasonal decorations, flowers, fussing with the vestments, and laundering altar cloths--and that's the way they liked it. After years of making all these activities seem like huge burdens and great mysteries, they didn't get why nobody would take it off their hands when they wanted to move to Florida.
OK, I'll be quiet now. I hope something useful will come out of all this, but past experience makes me cynical.
My experience with consultative processes in the Ohio Public Mental Health System has been very positive. County boards in Ohio fund but do not directly operate services; agencies do that. Boards cannot hire and fire agency staff but they do control the overall amount of money that agencies get. The money comes from federal and state dollars (which usually have some strings attached), but most of the money usually comes from county mental health levies which have to be renewed by the voters every ten years.
DeleteWhen I became planner for our county mental health board, we placed on the ballot an additional new levy for children’s mental health services. There was a process that involved all stakeholders (consumers, family members, schools, criminal justice system, welfare system, etc.) to define why the money was needed and what we wanted to accomplish. We passed the tax raise with 60% of the vote; most renewal levies in most counties squeak by with barely over 50%.
We then went through another planning process which had the stakeholders draft the Request for Proposals that would go to the agencies. There were mainly three agencies that already provided children’s services competing for the new funds. To our surprise, two of the agencies submitted a joint proposal for all the money that gave the board a very creditable model of how they would collaborate to do this. They also proposed during all case management services for children (that is what the third agency had done) and promised that they would interview all the existing case managers (and indeed they hired they all)! I got a call from another county which asked me what sort of gun I had to get all this cooperation. The answer I gave was that I am a very patient and good listener. (My boss even marveled at my patience). Beyond my own planning skills, we as a county had a well deserved reputation for a high level of cooperation among government and private entities.
I have taken part as a participant in parish and diocesan planning processes. It was pretty obvious to me that there was not much serious listening going on. Just a lot of social activity around tables, story boarding, etc. I was on our parish council, and they had absolutely no authority and very little input into the real decision making of the pastor and his staff. I once had dinner with the Saint Vincent De Paul Society members and asked them what they thought of the parish planning processes. "Too much like a corporation." They saw it as just another hoop that they had to go through to get help to the people whom they served.
The synod in the Lansing diocese will focus on the lost sheep, court of the gentiles, and house of the faithful thru parish listening sessions (see bishop's welcome video, process overview, manuals, handbooks, discussion guides, schedules, etc.).
ReplyDeleteWe don't know what the local parish might be doing with listening sessions because Raber has only just started going back since infection rates went down. Nothing on the FB page about it.
Seems to be one of those initiatives that emphasizes process over people.
We had a synod questionnaire link on the archdiocese website which everyone was encouraged to respond to. I did. But the questions asked were not about anything meaningful. I have a hard time even recalling what they were. It was hard to escape the notion that they were just going through the motions. Or maybe I was just going through the motions.
ReplyDelete"Going thru the motions." Pretty much. There is not link that I could see for the Lansing Diocese, though being lapsed, I would keep my nose out of it.
DeleteHmmm. So what does “focus on the lost sheep” mean? If they want to “listen” to the poor lost sheep (aka - human beings who have chosen to leave the Catholic Church) how will this happen? Since the ex-Catholics aren’t in the parishes to know about the “ listening” and “dialogue“ they aren’t likely to participate. So one must assume that this focus is meant to hear ideas on how to drag them back into those empty pews since none of the other “ Catholics Come Home” efforts have had much impact. It’s really not a mystery - change a few teachings. However, discussions of the needed changes are specifically banned according to what I’ve read in official documents and in comments elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteA comment on the America site
I just don't know what to think regarding the stubbornness of the male hierarchy in the Church.
Upon attending a recent synodal listening session, I mentioned the need to ordain women to the priesthood. The facilitator said that the Archdiocese (of Portland, in Oregon) forbade discussion of the topic of women priests. (The facilitator was a woman and seemed dismayed to have to announce that constraint).
Are we living in 2022 or 1222??
So much for an open synod to elicit thoughts and concerns regarding the Church..
Lost Sheep per the diocesan handbook: The faithful are supposed to go to Confession and ask for forgiveness for driving people away, pray for the lost, be a paragon of faith, and then approach the lost with "gentle fraternal correction" to urge them to go to Mass and Confession.
DeleteThere is nothing about having a conversation with the lost about how they got lost in the first place, which strikes me as essential in persuading them back.
Our local parish has no focus on the marginalized and or the suffering, so its sacraments are spiritless food for Christian life. I cannot imagine cheerfully enduring a bunch of Church Ladies calling me up and haranguing me about needing to get back to that corral.
About phone calls to try and get people back, we were talking a couple of threads ago how people don't answer their phones very much anymore. So I'm pretty sure that isn't a great strategy.
DeleteRealize this is a synod about synodality, i.e. how to improve the processes of consultation at all levels in the church. That is certainly needed by the church as well as all other large organizations in our society.
ReplyDeleteIt is not a synod on women priests; however I think a good case could be made that unwillingness to discuss the general issue of women in the church (including specific proposals for new roles) is a very important dimension of consultation.
This is a four year process; two years of consultation at diocesan levels continental synods and then the world synod. Supposedly out these processes will arise new and better models of consultation which might not be the same in all cultures.
The first two years will be followed by two years of implementation which I assume will go back to parishes, dioceses and national conferences with better models.
If we want better consultation processes we really have to begin to think about what we want to do in the two years of implementation at the parish, diocesan and national level.
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ReplyDeleteJean: Lost Sheep per the diocesan handbook: The faithful are supposed to go to Confession and ask for forgiveness for driving people away, pray for the lost, be a paragon of faith, and then approach the lost with "gentle fraternal correction" to urge them to go to Mass and Confession.
ReplyDeleteSo the blame is on the “ faithful “ in the pews. According to many studies, as well as countless personal articles by those who have left, most aren’t driven out of the church by other parishioners but decide to leave because of the clerical class, all the way up the ladder, and by the teachings that they are told cannot be changed.
There is nothing about having a conversation with the lost about how they got lost in the first place, which strikes me as essential in persuading them back.
Duh!
Our local parish has no focus on the marginalized and or the suffering, so its sacraments are spiritless food for Christian life. I cannot imagine cheerfully enduring a bunch of Church Ladies calling me up and haranguing me about needing to get back to that corral.
I have read several articles that say that programs that emphasize the social justice teachings of the church, that emphasize service to the marginalized, the suffering, the poor, refugees, immigrants etc have been somewhat successful at attracting young adults, those who are fed up with the hypocrisy of organized religion.
I stopped into my former parish when walking the other day, for a bathroom break and some cold water. (I spent more than 30 years there offering time, talent, and treasure so I don’t feel that I am taking advantage of their facilities). I read the bulletin when I stop there. Apparently the parish has lost 40-50% of its membership since I left that parish about 12 years ago. They are recruiting people to start makIng phone calls. as part of a Big campaign to be launched next fall to refill the pews. I assume they will only be calling people who are on the rolls but whose checks have failed to show up in the baskets for a long time. I also assume they aren’t trying to convert the majority of the community, who aren’t even christians. The other initiative is trying the small group approach again, but within neighborhoods, meeting in homes, not a church facility. Apparently an attempt to create a real sense of community in a parish where mass attendees often don’t recognize anyone there. That program may have a better chance of keeping those already there in the pews than the annoying telephone call campaign will have at bringing people back.
We did this sort of telephone campaign last year. We simply called everyone on the parish rolls. I say "we" called everyone but I wasn't personally part of the effort. However, I've spoken with a couple of the callers. They said the calls (at least those which were answered) were pretty positively received, with some parishioners saying, "It's about time!" (I think the idea there is that the pandemic had been raging for a year+ at that point, and those folks considered this the first time the parish had reached out to them.)
DeleteFWIW - I never got a call :-). As I've mentioned elsewhere, we canceled our landline two or three years ago. The odds that we didn't think to tell this to the parish office are approximately 100%.
What you were saying about meeting in neighborhoods and homes in small groups sounds kind of like what they are doing with Alpha here. We're not involved with that, but the people who are seem very enthusiastic about it, so I wish them luck. We were reluctant to commit to weekly meetings for 11 weeks, we have enough irons in the fire already.
DeleteI signed up for the 11-week program on the acts of mercy in Advent that one of the new people was running. However, Omicron hit, and the lady running it said that masks would not be required. So I thanked her for doing the program, wished her well, and bowed out. She sent me the workbook and said they had a good crowd. Mostly younger women and moms. I am glad to see that the parish is offering programming for folks.
DeleteThanks for the thoughts in your update, Jim. This one is especially poignant, "The war in Ukraine, in which religious divisions are playing a part, is a great scandal against communion with Jesus." Not only are both sides at least nominally Christian, their communities are close enough in belief that they say the same creed, and recognize one another's sacraments.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed something odd after the war in Ukraine has broken out in earnest. The usual people I know at work and elsewhere who like to be pretty loud and proud about politics have been relatively quiet,except to say that the war is a tragedy. Maybe it has caused some sober reflection. But that might be overly optimistic.
Yes, those are good answers.
DeleteHow unifying the RCC Communion is is a point of contention I don't want to press here. I do think that Catholics could be more welcoming of non-Catholics, especially family members at Baptisms, weddings, and funerals, inviting them to approach the Lord for a blessing.