The church is experiencing widespread calls for reform and has responded with platforms for listening and reflection through the 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome.
Many calls for reform have stressed the need to address changes in the church’s culture.
However, the history of organisational and cultural change underscores leadership as being the most important element in successful change.
Lessons learned from the leadership of successful cultural reforms stress the importance of focussing on the nurturing of the organisation’s culture through the alignment of values and mission.
Inconsistency between culture, mission and values leads to institutional dysfunction and reduced credibility.
Alignment between an organisation’s mission, values and culture cannot be left to chance.
Leaders in well-functioning organisations know this. They ensure that structures for governance and administration are consonant with the overall mission; they foster cultures that reflect the organisation’s values.
The character and actions of the leaders themselves have a major influence in shaping an organisation’s culture. If the call for a synodal church is to be successful, church leaders will need to be able to discern, promote and live the values of synodality.
For Francis, ‘synodality’ is non-negotiable: ‘what God wants’ of the church at this time. It goes far beyond the collegiality between all bishops with the bishop of Rome through the Synod of Bishops established by Pope Paul VI in 1965.
Through the lens of theology, the church is a community of faith, the sacrament of Christ and the People of God. At the same time, it lives out its identity and mission through people and through its organisational structures.
Little needs to be repeated about the contemporary loss of credibility of the church, both in Australia and around the world.
The Australian church is not alone in being called to account by Government, rather than by its own leaders, for systemic mismanagement of child sexual abuse.
There are elements of culture in the contemporary institutional church that undermine the church’s stated mission and values as a holy nation whose heritage is the dignity and freedom of the children of God and in whose hearts the Spirit dwells.
The 2023 Synod process is a call for all members of the church to take up what Vatican II began by way of both renewal (aggiornamento) and rediscovery of its early essence (ressourcement) to reform its culture and search for an authentic identity and form suitable for the Third Millennium.
The Synod’s preparatory consultations carry an explicit focus on the structures and organisational processes within the church — the form, the style, the structure.
The call to synodality is a call to convert, reform and renew the church’s organisational culture.
New cultures do not emerge automatically. It is not about turning upside down the present pyramid structure of the church with a clerical hierarchy at the top and the faithful on the bottom.
The church is not a political democracy, but a ‘holy people’ whose mission is to make God and Jesus present and, in a sense, visible to our world. (GS 21)
Participatory rather than unilateral, empowering rather than overpowering
Reform means change. Change can be uncomfortable and resisted.
Healthy organisations have all changed at some point in their existence, either in response to internal events (eg, loss of key personnel) or external pressures (eg, covid-19).
While leaders have the initial responsibility to drive change in an organisation, it is neither rocket science nor magic: it is all very possible.
For example, leaders can embed culture in an organisation through their allocation of resources (money does talk), how they respond to critical incidents of cultural misalignment (eg, sexual abuse), what is rewarded and how status is allocated (or removed), who they recruit (especially for leadership roles).
Leaders who consciously seek to embed a certain culture (eg synodality) will pay attention to it and assess it regularly.
Culture in an organisation is also shaped by its systems and procedures, rituals and celebrations, the design of physical space (eg, a church ‘in the round’), the narratives leaders use and formal statements of an institution’s philosophy, creeds and charters.
Among the many theories and models of leadership, one more suited to leadership in a synodal church, is that of the late Denis Edwards.
He described New Testament leadership as service-oriented rather than dominating, non-violent rather than coercive, from below rather than from above, participatory rather than unilateral, empowering rather than overpowering and based on hope in the resurrection of Jesus rather than on personal achievement.
Other models of a leadership sympathetic with synodality emphasise the relational character of leadership; leaders being truly part of the group they are called to lead and of their modelling and practising the values and beliefs of the people they lead.
Leaders who are perceived as having integrity and authenticity tend to elicit a sense of trust that the group is focussing together on a shared moral purpose.
Such leaders both affirm and extend (‘grow’) the resourcefulness of group members to contribute to the goals of the organisation, thereby shaping it further in that direction.
Such leaders continually seek to align members of the group to the larger realities, the macro context, in which they endeavour to pursue the organisation’s goals.
It is difficult to imagine the emergence of a more synodal church culture unless those in leadership understand and exercise the key characteristics of synodality:
- mission-oriented to the pastoral needs of this place at this time;
- open to inclusive dialogue and mutual listening;
- humble and service-oriented;
- open to conversion, change and the bidding of the Spirit; engaged within their local community and discerning decisions with members of the community based on a faith that recognises the priesthood of all the faithful and the unerring sensus fidei of the whole People of God.
If the church is to move in the direction of a more synodal church, then it will need to have in formal leadership roles women and men who understand this vision and who are prepared for and supported in their leadership using the best tools of leadership theory and practice; leaders with the willingness and capacity to search out structures, forms and styles that are more synodal in character.
Local church communities, the faithful, have a right to expect such leadership.
- Anne Benjamin is a writer and researcher. She is an Honorary Professor at Australian Catholic University and was previously Director of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Parramatta.
- First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.