The enthusiasm of some for the Synodal Way is one side of the way all human societies make deliberate change. Likewise, the fears of Cardinal Walter Kasper and some other bishops are exactly what we should expect.

If we could see the future clearly, then it would be different - but no one has a crystal ball. The future always contains surprises. Some of these will be more wonderful than anyone has imagined; other will be worse than our greatest fears. That is simply the way it is!

One might imagine that it would be different with the Church - the Body of the Christ animated by the Spirit - and it has been the illusion of some Christians in every age that because they "had the faith" or "the Bible" or the "gift of magisterium" that their steps into the future were guaranteed!

Alas, we are always engaged in a process of discernment: we pray for the light of the Holy Spirit and we then try to glimpse the way forward. We walk forward by faith. The Church's prayer is always that "by the light of the Spirit we may be truly wise and enjoy his consolation" (da nobis in … Spiritu recta sapere, et de eius semper consolation gaudere).

Wrong signals

If we cannot now know the outcomes of our decisions, what we might suspect, with Cardinal Kasper, will be a disaster. But it may turn out completely the opposite - and vice versa - so we can exercise some foreknowledge with regard to the signals our actions send out in the present.

Right now, I can know that something is being wrongly interpreted or wrongly used. What will happen tomorrow is, in an absolute sense, unknown; but what is faulty now can be known through an examination of evidence that has been building up for some time and is available to us. This is where we can take definite action for the better.

This is such a basic element of our thinking that we tend to ignore it and spend our time in more distant - and so imprecise - speculation.

We can easily illustrate this: will there be a fire in the house or will it be OK? I simply do not know, and I hedge my bets by having house insurance. Contrast that with the definite event that I smell smoke and hear the fire alarm now, right now. In this case, I do not speculate but act: I call the fire brigade.

Liturgy is not costume drama

We see this same decision process in the Church.

Some weeks ago, Pope Francis did not speculate that some clergy might or might not really want to take the reforms of Vatican II to heart. Rather, he saw that their actual activity now - wearing lace and birettas - sent out a signal that they did not like modernity.

This was not a "might be" or "might happen" but a definite signal to people by those priests that they preferred a former time. So the pope sent a clear and definite signal to them!

In effect, he told them that helping the People of God celebrate their liturgy - it belongs to all the baptized because when we assemble we are "wholly celebrant" - is what their ministry is about. It is not costume drama in which they, as clergy, have the leading roles and take the bows!

The view out of a Roman window: the view from outside, looking in, is very different!

But there are many other areas where the Church, or clergy, are right now sending out signals that indicate an actual problem - a fire that needs fighting urgently. And if these are not tackled, then it will make the whole synodal process, for both the fearful and the hopeful, little more than hot air.

Seen to be transparent

Long trained to discretion, indeed secrecy, most clergy are happier dealing with anything "scandalous" far from the public view. Hence, one episcopal conference after another has been found to have been involved in cover-ups! It would be interesting to know just how many bishops have had to resign in the last 25 years because they were seen "to have swept matters under the carpet".

But this attitude - quite apart from the fact that it is morally unjust (criminals were allowed to create more suffering and went un-punished) and ecclesiologically inept (every member of the Church is as much a member as anyone else) - also failed to appreciate our cultural situation.

Lace inside the head

Many years ago I heard praise of a new bishop - arrived from a job in Rome - by some of the canons of his chapter: "He is the soul of discretion - his Vatican training is in his every move!"

I hope that would not be a vote of approbation by those priests today if they got a new bishop. Anyone who is so naturalized to secrecy, even to holding up the so-called "pontifical secret", is actually unfit for a job in the Roman Curia, much less in a diocese.

Such a man is an inhabitant of a world that is long past. Such a man is wearing lace inside his head.

A world that craves transparency

Whenever we find examples of people doing things in a "smoke-filled room" or "behind closed doors" or without full reporting, we become suspicious. Sad experience has taught us that such "back room" procedures are usually the fore-runner of greater problems.

So, for example, we are not surprised to hear that there is a crackdown on a free press and open discussion in Vladimir Putin's Russia. What might be labelled "judicious discretion" among two bishops in purple cassocks seems little different from "suppression" and "repression" when done by a military junta.

But time and again we see a minimalist approach to transparency from bishops. It is simply the wrong signal: it creates the impression that they cannot be trusted. Then it generates the question: why do they want to keep things back? Then: what have they to hide?

The breakdown of trust in the Church - which just might be generating those attitudes which cause the fears expressed by Cardinal Kasper - is a fact right now. Once people spontaneously generate that wonderful expression, the hermeneutic of suspicion, then there is a rupture in the magisterium.

This rupture is not a possible fruit of a mistaken approach to synodality (i.e. the equivalent of "will the house go on fire?" or "will there be a sea-battle tomorrow?"), but a simple fact for many of the baptized - they do not trust the official statements of bishops as anything more than statements intended to preserve power and prevent necessary change.

This level of suspicion of bishops has probably not been seen over wide areas of the Western Church since the sixteenth century.

An interesting slogan

Among disadvantaged groups this very significant statement is often repeated: Nothing about us, without us, is for us.

It is worth thinking carefully about the implications of this maxim.

It speaks of suspicion, the desire for transparency, and the desire for real - not token - consultation.

It also speaks about the experience of women who hear statements made about them and their bodies by men.

It speaks about married people hearing about the demands of the Christian life from celibates who have never had to worry about being out of work, never had to cope with the pressures of providing food or shelter or repaying a mortgage each month, nor dealing with the worries that are part of every relationship and family.

It speaks about hearing of "child protection measures" from men who do not have children but have profound professional identification with clerical abusers.

And the list goes on ….

Signs of the times

Let's not worry about tomorrow's potential problems, we have enough actuals that need urgent attention.

"So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today" (Mt 6:34).

Time is short! Some things are urgent! Transparency is a 'sign of this time'

Time is short! Some things are urgent! Transparency is a 'sign of this time'

We need to take heed of the signs of the times - and stop sending out the wrong signals.

You might say, "But transparency is not that important, and certainly not part of our moment! Let's just ignore it!"

Well, some people in the Vatican have already seen that it is part of our historical moment - hence the accounts for Peter's Pence have just been published for the first time. This is the transparency that is appropriate to a community such as the Church.

Anything that is less than full transparency - and being transparent about transparency - is a skandalon (a stumbling block) to evangelization.

• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.
• Thomas O'Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest book is Discipleship and Society in the Early Churches.

They '"let rip" at the Germans.

The Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland Church leaders' letter is an excellent example of one group of bishops seeing the synodal process as another country's "problem."

The Synodal Path "must be seen against the backdrop of the concrete situation in Germany", the Scandinavian bishops argue, because it gives the reason for the "felt demand/need for change".

How else could this be?

Should the German bishops reply to their episcopal confreres about the problems in the Nordic countries?

The Scandinavian bishops want to put themselves on the map and distance themselves from the "German problem".

Their letter begins in a condescending manner that continues throughout as if they bring a depth of learning and insight that is lacking in the German Church.

At the outset, they acknowledge their historical reliance on Germany from the Post-Reformation period, neatly forgetting their much earlier reliance on Germanic Christians.

They also acknowledge their financial dependence on the German Church, which they continue to enjoy.

An attempt to avoid the real challenges and issues

The "immense challenges" facing the Church, according to the Scandinavian bishops, are global and "overpowering" — challenges they wish to "negotiate" or "approach" in faithfulness to Christ.

"Avoid" might have been a more accurate sentiment. The implication of negotiating rather than confronting or addressing is clear, and it sets the overall tone of the bishops' letter.

Although they see the "felt demand for change" in Germany as the hub of the German problem, the issues raised by the Synodal Path are not "purely" or exclusively German.

The Scandinavians acknowledge that the issues raised by the Germans are "overpowering, global challenges for the Church", but as the bishops of the Nordic countries, they take issue with them. They only acknowledge ecclesial sexual abuse as a matter of justice and a Christian imperative.

The implication is that the other issues of priestly life-forms, such as celibacy and formation, the place of women in the Church (ordination and governance), and a broader understanding of sexuality are not matters of justice or Christian imperative for them.

The Scandinavians address sexual abuse with the now hackneyed episcopal condemnations.

They address this issue from the point of justice and Christian imperative because it is the "safe" issue. Safe, because everyone agrees that something should be done, and every bishop wants to be seen to be doing something.

The primary reason for their condemnation is not the ecclesial sin committed against believers but their concern for the continuing believability of the Church.

"Dangerous topics"

Again, they put the institution and the structures that created the sin first. But later in their letter, they seem to want to protect the same structures.

The other issues such as clerical life and formation, women in the Church and teaching on sexuality are treated differently, probably because they demand proactive change rather than reactive apologies.

The problem with these issues — for the Scandinavians — is they touch on the immutability of teaching and, at the same time, reflect the Zeitgeist or spirit of the age. They are "dangerous topics" that should be avoided.

Consequently, the search for answers to these issues needs to be pulled aside and reviewed by the unchangeable elements.

Clearly, the Nordic bishops have not found a dogmatic or Zeitgeist objection to ecclesial sexual abuse.

Given this context, they conclude that the "direction, methodology and content" of the Synodal Path are worrisome.

They accuse the Germans of being driven by "process thinking" and the desire for structural Church change without clearly outlining Prozessdenken and why structural change is problematic.

As a result, both process thinking and structural change are presented negatively because they reduce reform in the Church to a project.

Implicit is the notion that reform is neither structural nor human by design when applied to the Church.

The argument is that Church does change differently from every other human institution. Where the Church becomes an object of human change, it is no longer the subject of God's salvific will.

"Process thinking" and a richer theological debate

Process-thinking is an end-to-end process, that is non-hierarchical in its structure.

According to the Nordic bishops, non-hierarchical thinking threatens the non-changeable sources of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium, and must therefore be eliminated.

The danger of process-thinking is that it can break down sacred theological silos and open discrete theological categories to investigation and scrutiny.

But on the positive side, process-thinking can enable a richer theological debate, better theology and Church structures, thus optimizing Church life.

Concretely, this means having laypeople sitting beside bishops making decisions in a fundamental "equality of equals."

Some would argue that this is a model of the early Church, while others would disagree.

By contrast, the Scandinavian bishops appear to want to disempower the image or metaphor of the People of God. They write that this is "only one of the images with which the living Tradition describes the Church".

That's true, but it is a crucial image or metaphor of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

A Church with passive members

The Scandinavian bishops suggest three other images should be used to describe the Church

• Corpus mysterium
• Bride of Christ and
• Mediatrix of graces.

These are more passive and receptive than they are active and dynamic.

The curious metaphor of the Church as the "mediatrix of graces" is a reference I have not found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).

They might be meaning that the Church "is like a sacrament" (CCC 775) and "as a sacrament, the Church is Christ's instrument" (CCC 776). If so, their theology is unclear and needs greater precision.

Having not paid sufficient attention to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the bishops have missed other vital images of the Church that Pope Francis has used explicitly and implicitly.

These include the Church as sheepfold and Christ as the shepherd; the Church as God's farm or field and God the heavenly farmer; the Church as building; the Church as Pilgrim People; and the Church as Body, for whom the "one mediator is Christ" (Lumen Gentium 6-8).

I believe the Scandinavians are correct to say that the Church "cannot be merely defined by the visible community".

But neither can it be defined without it.

For some, addressing the day's issues might be a capitulation to the current Zeitgeist. Still, for others, this is "reading the signs of the times".

The type of Catholic the Scandinavian bishops appeal to—and want the German bishops to hear—are those who sit quietly in their parishes with a strong sense of sacramental mystery.

These people "carry and set" the life of parishes and communities. They are not people who engage in questionnaires and debates, the bishops say, to defend them.

There is a "quietest" element to this type of person and a sense that the person who keeps his or her head firmly in the snow is the true type of Catholic.

Radical conversion and a radical image of God

But are these the people with whom Pope Francis wants us to communicate? His message is more outward-focused, asking us to engage with the sheep who have left the farm.

Consequently, the reference to Lumen Gentium 9 is double-edged.

How does the Church, in Christ's name, "approach the world and be its sure hope and source of salvation" if it does not also engage with the questions and push-back of the people of this age? Is it sufficient to live the ad intra life of the Church in peace and serenity by ignoring the ad extra "mess" we call human society?

The Scandinavian bishops then return to the "German problem" and the crisis of the German Church and its potential for renewal.

Condescendingly, they remember the dead saints, the past German theologians, and the humble and obscure German missionaries as examples of the life-giving patrimony of rich blessing for the Church in Germany.

Although they write of the need for radical conversion, they seem to want to avoid radical conversion that isn't spiritualised.

They misunderstand that the image of the People of God is a radical image of God, not of the people!

In this image, God is not the property of the people, but the people are the chosen of God.

Regarding the mission of the Church, the Scandinavians have forgotten that the Church — the People of God — are called to be salt and light for the world through living immersed in the world.

People sitting safely at home not participating in the life of the Church cannot be the synodal image of Scandinavian Catholicism the bishops wish to promote, can they?

The Scandinavian bishops should send another letter apologizing to the German Church.

They could explain why they are so frightened of facing the world's reality and why they want to hide from key contemporary questions.

Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is: Liturgical Lockdown. Covid and the Absence of the Laity. (Te Hepara Pai, 2021).

This is the truism that is at the basis of every system of ethics - both those that have been written down and the countless others that have never achieved that level of formality.

Moreover, it is the presence or absence of particular virtues that often determine the differences between groups. Different styles of society call forth from their members' different values of behaviour.

In a clericalist Church, the most widespread virtue needed by the majority of the members is the virtue of obedience.

Obedience to the hierarchy was even included in the old list of the "Six Commandments of the Church". And any act of disobedience was punishable by canon law.

The highest compliment that could be paid to a Catholic layman was that he or she "was a loyal son or daughter of the church".

By this was meant that the person obeyed the rules and did not seek - for instance as a politician - to limit the scope of the Church leaders to use their position to influence legislation, control hospitals and schools, and perhaps act as the "guardians" of 'public morality.'

In such a simple two-tier society the relationship between clerics and laity was analogous to officers and those in lower ranks. Power descended, and obedience and loyalty joined the two levels together to form the society of the Church.

It is this virtue system that is often summarized in this phrase: the laity is there to pray, pay and obey.

New situation, new virtues

But if we are to move to a synodal Church we will have to discover and learn to live with a new set of virtues.

A basic idea of synodality is that bishops came from a variety of places and met together - the place of the synod was, in effect, a crossroads.

Once they met, they had to trust one another that each was working in his own place - near or far - for the good of the whole group.

This is the virtue of mutual trust.

But what does mutual trust look like in the new synodal Church we are seeking to bring into being?

Trust within a Eucharistic community

Clearly, the majority of each community - "the laity" - are expected to trust the presbyter who presides at their celebrations. They are expected to trust that he is working both for their good and the good of the whole People of God.

They trust that he is giving careful attention to the liturgy; for example, that he thinks and prepares carefully each time he seeks to break open the Word of God in a homily. And they truest his giving careful attention to the poor of the community and to the sick, as well.

They also have to trust that in the virtue of the presbyter being the public face of that Church. And they must trust that, in so far as he takes on that public role, he is a model of Christian service.

This is not just the trust that the community places in their presbyter - and for which they sustain him with their contributions -, but this is what the formal structures of the wider Church expect of him as expressed in canon law.

Truth or Distrust? A basic question in every community

It is this trust that has often been shattered in the last couple of decades by the scandals of abuse that keep coming out in country after country.

The problem will continue, partly because we are fearful of looking deeply at the problem and partly out of our embarrassment.

Every organization tends to diminish the extent of the problem in a vain hoping that it will preserve the organization's public face.

But that still leaves this fact: a community needs to place trust in the person who presides at the Eucharist.

They have to see him as leading them as a beloved brother in their sacrifice of praise to the Father in union with Christ.

They have to trust in him as their teacher, guide, confidante and healer - that he will be the Spirit's instrument in guiding them along the pilgrimage of faith.

Vice-versa

But if the community has to trust the presbyter, the presbyter has also to trust the community of the baptized because it is they together who constitute the priestly people of God.

For Roman Catholics, it goes — almost without saying — that those in the community have to trust in the sacrament of Holy Orders. But the harder task is the ordained have to trust in the sacrament of baptism.

Every presbyter has baptized many people; sadly, very few really believe what the Church - not just the western, Roman church - believes about baptism.

But if the Holy Spirit lives in the heart of every baptized person, then that person deserves trust and respect within the Church.

The Prayer of the Faithful

A few years ago a parish priest in Scotland wanted to create a Sunday synodal liturgy in his parish. The community would bring their gifts to the gathering each week and share them with the community of the baptized in their thanksgiving to the Father.

So this presbyter set up several little groups of three or four people who would take it in turn to prepare the Prayer of the Faithful. And to help them, he instructed them in the theology of this action and gave them training in doing it well.

This might seem surprising because, in many places, this part of the Sunday gathering is mistakenly called the "prayers of the faithful" as if it was just a list of "give me" prayers.

In other places, it is called "the bidding prayers". Again, this conveys the idea of listing what we want.

The Prayer of the Faithful is, in fact, the intercession of the new priestly people - who are made such by their baptism for the world, the whole Church of God, all who are in need and for their particular needs.

This is a priestly act of entering into the presence of God - and standing there as a people - and making intercession.

The roots of this are in Judaism and the daily work of the tribe of Levi, the cohenim. It is an expression of the new, unique priesthood of the Risen Christ in which we all, as the holy People of God, take part.

The ordained brother who presides takes part in this prayer by virtue of his baptism, not his ordination.

The Prayer of the Faithful can be seen as an expression of the synodal Church in action.

But what about trust?

A new, young priest came to the parish in Scotland and did not like what his predecessor had done. He was going to lead the liturgy and only he was going to lead the liturgy!

His first step was to require the group who prepared the Prayers of the Faithful to show him - for his approval - what they were going to say. Then he vetoed texts that did not fit with his own vision of the Church. He wanted them to use his texts or to read them from a book.

The prayer shifted from being an expression of this particular community of the baptized to being one more formula read out for them. This Church was no longer making its specific and unique intercession, but simply agreeing to something.

The people were naturally hurt that their efforts, and their ministry to their sisters and brothers, were being set aside.

One said: "He just wants us to pray, pay and obey in his words!"

"He thinks in terms of a clerical church!" said another.

And another said: 'He simply does not trust us!'

All agreed that that was the basic problem.

This presbyter simply did not trust his community.

He did not trust what we believe about baptism.

He did not trust that the Spirit speaks in the hearts of the faithful

And he simply did not trust that when the three or four people are gathered to compose a text for the Prayer of the Faithful on Sunday that the Lord Jesus was among them.

Plain and simple, this presbyter does not trust the faithful.

Trust is a two-way street

Every time I meet a bishop, a presbyter or a deacon, I hear concern over the sad fact that they have largely lost the trust of the people.

But when I talk to groups of lay Catholics, they are usually more concerned that they are not trusted by their clergy.

Trust goes both ways. It is a basic value for synodality.

Unless our presbyters learn to trust the People of God, the synodal Church will not come into being.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.

"If we fail to embrace this challenge we shall have little to offer and shall become an irrelevant religious sect with massive museums and a complex back story."

Pope Francis has said 'the church of the future must be a synodal church', and so becoming a ministering community of sisters and brothers is 'the' challenge.

O'Loughlin's comments to CathNews follow an online address to a lay group, the Association of Catholics in Ireland, where here he discussed what synodality means in a Catholic context today.

O'Loughlin said he recalled hearing brother presbyters and brother bishops saying that they are terrified by synodality.

"I often wonder are they terrified for the Gospel or are they terrified for the familiar structures of power?", he asked.

Our ecclesial DNA has a built-in command-and-control structure, he said.

As recently as St Pius X, it had been said that the Church is made up of two unequal parts.

One part "which is to lead and one which is to be led; one which is to teach and one which is learn."

He added: "So deep inside our structures and our vision is a vision of inequality."

Asked if he thought synodality would take off, the theologian said that either it does "or the Church will collapse".

O'Loughlin revealed some of the students he has taught are now running seminaries in South America that produce evangelicals.

"The reason evangelicals are mopping up is not that they are producing some fabulously different theology but because they are actually building it out of the structures of the people," O'Loughlin said.

"They are not assuming that people are in a structure that was there 250 years ago.

"Remember every structure that we have in the Church today last got a makeover at the time of the reactions to the Reformation in the late sixteenth century; the Church stopped being able to speak to the urban population of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries", he said.

O'Loughlin told the Association that the minimal impact of Vatican II on the Church during the past 50 years represents a failure in thinking out basic assumptions around clergy and laity, the Eucharist, and priesthood.

"So, either we go down the synodal route and build the Church up as a community that has a different vision of how it will live - not individuals but a community made up of individuals - or we will become a historical sect.

"Will it work?

"I pray every day it will because otherwise, we are finished."

• Note: Listen to the address.
• The audio commences with 'housekeeping'. The actual address begins with an introduction at 2:57.

Source

• The Tablet
• The Association of Catholics in Ireland
• Supplied
• Image:YouTube

And so it is not surprising that in region after region Catholic bishops are embracing synodality. The Germans have embarked on a synodal path, the Australians a plenary council, the Irish a synod … and so it goes on and on.

This shows remarkable growth in ecclesiology in a matter of three of four years in comparison with the amount of attention that these same conferences of bishops devoted to it - or to the significance of the Synod of Bishops - in the first decades after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

Let us hope and pray that this new enthusiasm for synodality will bring renewal to the Catholic Church, mark an end to the decades of scandal following the scandal, and also allow the Church to put behind it the centralist triumphalism that was so attractive in the nineteenth century.

In an age of imperialism and colonialism, the Catholic Church took on contemporary dress. However, it has been slower than many states at changing its fashion.

Perhaps we should pay more attention to those conservative voices who hope this will all be a flash in the pan, those who murmur — none too silently — that they will just sit out this pontificate and who see this whole "synodality thing" as simply populism. The Church, they remind us, is not a democracy!

To enter true dialogue, one must be open to change

The reason to listen to these voices is that, while many bishops do not share those reactionary perspectives on the Church, very few are actually prepared to accept the implications of synodal processes.

There is a basic fact of human communication at issue here: if you enter a process of dialogue, and then do not accept the conclusion arrived at within the debate, then you lose that dialogue partner.

When a politician says, "I hear what you are saying", we all know that time is being given to a gripe, but that is all you will get. There will be no change, no action, no new policy. You have been "given a hearing" - that's your lot!

By contrast, if I enter a dialogue I have to be open to having my views changed, my position altered.

And, if the dialogue relates to activity, then my being in the dialogue makes an implicit statement: I shall accept change if that is the result of the dialogue.

Listening is not the same as hearing. Listening involves openness to change.

If I go to buy a kettle and discuss my exact needs for my new kettle with the shopkeeper, there is an assumption in the dialogue that I might learn more about my needs for a particular kettle and then act on that new information.

Now imagine a series of dialogues in country after country around the Catholic world - they may be called "pastoral consultations" or "plenary councils" or "synods" - and there is agreement on where the argument leads. What happens next?

If nothing happens and there is no change, then the event has actually generated frustration and bad-faith. The relationships between the partners will be more fraught and embittered, if not entirely broken.

What if the bishops reply that they agree with the plans, but say it is "above their pay grade" and issue must go to Rome? Then while their dialogue will continue, a new fissure may be in the course of being opened within the larger Church.

Where then will these men stand? With the local synod to whom they are committed as ministers? Or to the larger Church to which bishops believe they owe not only respect but obedience? To where does their primary responsibility relate?

We may wish that these questions will not be tested in practice, but they should be faced openly, explicitly, and honestly.

This might seem all very theoretical but consider the issue of women in the Church.

Women within the Church

While some bishops and theologians dismiss calls for women to be admitted to the ministry of deacon (not to mention the "higher" orders) as no more than a perverse example of "gender theory", the fact remains (whether those bishops are right or wrong) that there are some women in the Church who see this matter as crucial to their continuance within Catholicism.

They see an all-male ordained ministry as simply unacceptable and a legacy of a discredited, outdated patriarchy.

Moreover, they have allies!

Recently, I listened to a debate where a loyal son of the Church pointed out that "the will of Christ was that men alone should be ministers - that is why he chose only men as apostles". And he added some quotes from the appropriate Vatican documents.

I assumed the debate would not turn on the historicity of early texts such as the gospels, the confusion surrounding the term "apostle" in the early Churches where women were apostles (cf. Rom 16:7) or the hermeneutics of historical precedents (if they be "precedents") within Catholic discourse.

Alas, I was disappointed!

The debate went like this:

"Do you have children?"

"Yes - a son and a daughter," he replied.

"Are you making equal provision for both in education?"

"Yes - both are at university," he said with an obvious pride.

"That would not have happened 50 years ago, much less in the time of Jesus."

That debate on women's non-admittance to the diaconate stopped there and then.

A First World problem

It might be replied that this sort of attitude to women - that daughters should be treated equally as sons in education - is very much "a First World problem" and dismissed as such (one presbyter in the audience at that debate did just that).

But - do we really want to belong to a Church that does not want all the children upon the planet to have equal opportunities in education?

Items not for discussion

If bishops as decision-makers within the Church have already decided that there are areas where they are not willing to make changes, or that they are not willing on behalf of their sisters and brothers advocate changes with Rome, then it might be a better policy if these "non-negotiables" were clearly laid out before a synodal process begins.

We are all familiar with the notion that there are "red lines" in political exchanges. But are there red lines for the men in red and purple?

The stark fact is this: if these red lines are not set out clearly, there will be an implicit assumption that these questions are open for debate and so for change.

Like it or not, a synodal process is not about debate, even elevated theological debate.

It is about change.

The signs of hope that Synods hold for women and those within the Church who want to see change may deliver the opposite.

The warning comes from involved and committed Catholic women in a conversation on Flashes of Insight.

Saying that synodal discernment is neither easy nor fast, leaves the question open to how much time and effort people will have to give to a process that perhaps seems to be better suited for church professionals.

The women warn the non-involvement of people may have the inverse effect of opening up the Church, implying it may return the Church walled garden albeit built by a minority view.

Through groups, she is associated within Australia, Auckland theologian and lecturer Jo Ayers is watching the Australian Plenary (synod) develop.

From her involvement with these groups, she questions how inclusive the process is and suggests that excluding people from the conversation will have the significant potential to further alienate, perhaps the majority of Catholics.

"There is a lot of discussion and struggle about the agenda for the (Australian) Plenary and who will be the members who make the decisions".

All four women on Flashes of Insight are hopeful and want to see change.

While they acknowledge and accept that change is upon the Church, a niggling thread remains throughout the conversation about how much the Synods are in the hands of ‘ordinary Catholics'?

Australian pastoral worker, theologian and school chaplain, Elizabeth Young RSM admits the ‘ordinary Catholic' question is a good one.

She says there has been a diversity of view as to how much the Australian plenary processes have filtered down to ‘people in the pews.'

She acknowledges there has been a considerable amount of hard work done by a lot of people who have been working to promote the Australian Plenary at a ‘grass-roots' level. However, she admits the coverage has been a bit patchy.

She says some people are feeling very distant, it is a process that is happening far away and leaving them wondering how they can get involved in it.

Describing the Australian Catholic Church as a "blokey culture at the top", Flashes of Insight host, Joe Grayland asks whether Synodality, the Australian Plenary is just another process that will end up in nothing.

Fiona Dyball a theologian involved in Liturgy and faith formation with the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference disagrees, saying change is upon the Church.

"We have to change and how we change is through relationships with people that we don't know".

She says it is important to look around society and see a change in attitude.

Dyball says the change will not happen overnight, that change is hard and long, but that it is happening.

She says she admires the work of the religious orders who functioning as catalysts and are picking up on this change and helping lead the way inside the Australian Church.

Kate Bell a catechist and theologian in the Palmerston North diocese is watching with interest the German Church's response to their synod.

She is impressed at how the German Church and some of their church leaders continue to bravely gnaw, bother and despite considerable criticism from within Germany and outside, keep the discussion going.

Looking from afar at the German process, Bell says she hopes local bishops' conferences will be given the opportunity to fully adapt and respond to the needs of their particular societies.

Admitting waiting for the obvious, the ‘tipping point' is "exhausting", but remains optimistic and hopeful.

• Jo Ayers, Kate Bell, (New Zealand) and Fiona Dyball and Elizabeth Young (Australia)

"Second-class membership for women anywhere is unjust," she told Flashes of Insight on Wednesday.

Asked by host Joe Grayland if the relationship of women and the Catholic Church is a problem, she replied she did not choose to see it this way and simply called the relationship of women and the Catholic Church "a matter of justice".

Ayers said that God is made known to us in all our relationships and in examining these we are told that women are fully human.

She says that the Catholic Church is no longer prophetic for women and that civil society is.

"The evidence in New Zealand of women in leadership, in the highest jobs in the country underscores that civic society is ahead of the (Catholic) Church".

It is a point echoed by Palmerston North catechist and theologian, Kate Bell, who is concerned the Church is so far behind.

"It is the (Catholic) Church that has the problem. It has not been able to comprehend and stay on board with the fact that women are baptized.

"The Church fails to understand that in the power and the validity of baptism we are made into Christ", she said.

Bell says that society has not got it all right either and the church could provide some really interesting critique.

It is a point picked up by Elizabeth Young, theologian, pastoral worker and chaplain in Forbes, Australia.

Young says the Scriptures, Proverbs, legitimize women's leadership in for example business.

She says Jesus call to people was not limited; that it was inclusive.

She told Flashes of Insight that Jesus called women, men, those from various cultural backgrounds, young and old and not Christian stereotypes because he called unlikely people too!

For Young, the challenge is how can the Church embody and exemplify this ‘reign of God' in civil society.

Like Bell she wonders how the Church can, today, challenge society.

Fiona Dyball from the Liturgy and Faith Formation office of the Australian Catholic Bishops told the conversation of the importance of understanding discipleship.

"If we are following Jesus, we follow what Jesus did, and Jesus chose and called women all over the place to receive the good news, to spread the Gospel and be Jesus witnesses", she told the conversation.

She says she is reminded of the fantastic work the Sisters did and how empowered they were.

"They just made pathways and did it through partnerships and by forming relationships."

A fan of Pope Francis who is really setting the say, Dyball says she is however looking for more public encouragement from some of the male leaders in the Church.

Far from seeing the cupboard bare, Dyball says she sees women in the Church ministry who are prophetic but sees there is still plenty of room, in the spirit of Vatican II, to ‘open the windows'.

Any such stress carries with it twin dangers.

First, that we then assume that somehow that is all the Spirit does, the Spirit is there - almost functionally - to produce unity and the bonds of peace (Eph 4:3).

Second, that we then further simplify this action of bringing unity to it being the sort of unity that we produce: uniformity, rigidity, and blandness.

So it is useful to remember that the Spirit is simultaneously the giver of diversity - and that in a divine economy that unity and diversity are not in contradiction. It is this richness that can be the richness of a synodal Church.

The notion of synodality scares many in the Church - they see it only as messiness and chaos. They never see this the other way: diversity is richness.

The Spirit's gifts

The Spirit unites, heals, and any true unity is the fruit of the divine presence.

When we recall our unity in the Christ, our unity in baptism, and in discipleship we are not recalling our common commitment, nor shared acceptance of a system of ideas, nor collective adherence to a structure; rather it is the Spirit's presence that makes us one royal priesthood, a chosen people, and a holy nation.

It is through our sharing in the Spirit that we become what we are.

And it is through the Spirit's power that we are able to know and declare the wonderful deeds of the Father who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light (cf. 1 Pet 2:9).

This unity that is formed by the Spirit is manifold: it unites us with the Christ, it reverses the human tendency to fragmentation, challenged us to reject asserting differences to bolster our sense of identity, it helps us towards a true catholicism which is the overcoming of sectionalism, and confronts our pride and jealously.

The gift of unity is a positive addition to our human state, it is not to be imagined along the lines of human unification which thinks in terms of mergers, alliances, pacts, and the destruction of differences so that all looks the same, works together, and behave with the sort of unity that is essential in a clock, a computer, or a regiment.

In the unity of the Holy Spirit, the whole is more than the sum of the parts, but each element's distinctiveness and individuality as a creature is preserved. When we think of the Spirit's unifying and reconciling presence we are hard-pressed to find parallels in human experience.

So rather than search out 'parallels', it is more useful to think of the Spirit as the source for what we imagine as the opposite of unification: the act of diversification.

Diversity is a mark of the Spirit's work

The Spirit is present in all creation, yet everywhere we see its diversity.

• How many types of life are there?
• How many species of plants and animals?
• How many human beings are there: each clinging to their individuality, distinctiveness, and identity.

Diversity is everywhere.

Diversity is richness and the source of beauty.

Diversity is what makes life worth living.

The Spirit is the giver of life, and life is filled with difference, interest and wonder. This is the diversifying Spirit at work.

Paul rejoiced in the diversity of the human body as part of the creation so that he could recall the diversity of the Church in the Spirit.

Before any talk about the Spirit in the Church, it is a good idea to read 1 Cor 12:4-30.

A Church sharing in the same Spirit is full of diversity and is not short of the multiplicity of talents, each distinctly expressed that will build the community of love.

By contrast, when we forget that the Spirit diversifies we tend to imagine the community of the Church as a structure, become blind to the richness of his diverse presence and gifts in those around us, and even begin to wonder if the Spirit is abandoning us.

Enlighten our hearts and minds

The Spirit brings enlightenment, and this too takes the character of its richness from diversity. It is the diversity of human insights that build up human knowledge, is the spark of excitement, interest and genius.

And again, only diversity allows us to appreciate the wonder of the good and the beautiful: what if there was only one beautiful image or poem?

• Why is a diversity of languages better than just one?
• Why is it better to have four rather than one gospel?
• Why is there such diversity of insights in the Church?

Those who would reduce diversity have a low view of human nature, a lower view of the value of human living, and little or no awareness of the transcendent.

Every tyrant in history has eventually sought to destroy differences of opinion - in everything from politics to art - and then usually sought to eradicate humans that appeared too different from his image of perfection. In contrast, the Spirit produces diversity upon diversity, and we can marvel and rejoice in the Spirit's creativity.

Many clergy fear diversity

Diversity has a bad history in Christian practice.

Diversity is not richness but fragmentation, schism, heresy.

We look back to the story of the Tower of Babel as a punishment for pride. In this myth the earth had only 'one language and few words' (Gen 11:1) and all acted as single people (11:4 and 6), then people came to think that nothing would be impossible for them (11:6), so God confused their language to thwart them and he scattered them (11:7-8), and so the place came to be called Babel (11:9).

It is a powerful myth: sin splits and destroys unity- and we so easily convert the idea and imagine that diversity is the result of a broken unity!

So whenever we see variation, the difference we do not see is the distinct aspect of a mystery greater than us, where all those aspects might call us to see the limits of any one of them, and seek to grow in understanding and appreciation?

Yet just reflect on the rhetoric that we have used over the centuries to stress the lack of diversity as a sign of unity of faith: one ritual, one language, one method of doing things, one standardised theology, and on and on - it was as if we could not imagine that God could be greater than our love of imposed orderliness and uniformity!

Babel undone

By complete contrast, in his presentation of the coming of the Spirit, Luke presents his myth to counterbalance Babel.

On his great day of Pentecost the many nations, the Spirit does not remove the diversity of languages but rather enables the gathered community - itself a diverse bunch of men and women (Acts 1:14) - to begin 'to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance' (Acts 2:4).

Those who heard them did not hear new single language - neither Latin nor Esperanto - but each heard in his own language (a point Luke repeats: Acts 2:6, 8, and 11).

In Luke's myth, the Spirit, even in a miracle of uniting the nations, values diversity.

In the Babel myth that people set out to build a city as a function of their uniformity - there were only one people and they had but few words - and this provoked divine punishment; in the Pentecost myth a new city is being built by the Spirit upon the riches of diversity.

This is the Spirit given diversity of languages, cultures, peoples, and insights. From out of this diversity, the mighty works of God become known and praised in each language.

When we are thinking about the Spirit and seeking to speak about the Spirit we need to ask ourselves which myth is most powerful in our own minds.

At the end of most homilies - or bits of writing like this one - there is a natural human tendency to sum up, to put it all in a sentence, or to attempt a synthesis.

After all, is this not what a good communicator should do? So we might then speak of the Spirit being unifying in diversity and diversifying in unity, or some such seemingly synthetic formula that draws together the conflicting aspects of our reflection.

We see the same tendency in among those who are fearful of synodality: they praise it, but then imagine it can be predictably packaged.

However, such synthetic formulae almost assume that the mystery of the divine can be comprehended or neatly wrapped up. Rather we should live with the staccato insights and not seek to reduce them to what seems to fit our minds.

The Spirit is unifying. The Spirit is diversifying. The Spirit can be seen in any number of other ways. The Spirit is, indeed, infinite, or as we should constantly remind ourselves: Deus semper maior (God ever greater).

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, emeritus professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK) and director of the Centre of Applied Theology, UK. His latest award-winning book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).