He explains that this way they'll hear different world views from Catholics who come from different countries and cultures or have different life experiences from theirs.

"Perspective is not the enemy of the truth. It's the normal way of the Church. That's why we have four Gospels."

Flores is one of nine people Pope Francis has appointed to serve as president delegates at this year's Synod - just as they did last year.

Listening serves understanding

Flores told a news conference last week that the global pre-synod 2021 and 2022 listening process has helped synod members learn to listen to diverse perspectives.

"The central reality is to be aware that the perspective approaches the same mystery, but from its own context.

"It's important for the rest of the body to hear it, not because we have to kind of pay due to that, but because we don't see as clearly if we don't hear what the local perspective is."

The discipline

Listening is a discipline, Flores says.

"If it were easy for everyone to listen, we would all do it, but obviously we don't."

He explains that the synodal reality into the future will see "a disciplined, patient listening, a perspective that we all need to hear if we are to get the full picture. But what is the picture? The picture is the face of Christ".

The synod's work involves firstly taking all the perspectives offered by the listening sessions from local, diocesan, national and continental meetings.

Then it combines them with the findings of synod members who were at the first assembly to try "to find a cohesive voice".

Rather than one person or one country's voice, it will be the voice of the church, he says.

Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa, special secretary of the synod, said after last year's assembly he recalls how many people were amazed by the diverse experiences of the Church "they would never have imagined".

He says now the task is to "identify convergences, divergences and possibilities".

Women's place

Recognising and strengthening the role of women in the church has been a constant theme since the synod was first mooted.

Synod president delegate, St Joseph Sister Maria de los Dolores Palencia Gómez, says "a path is being carved and is already bearing fruit" although the pace varies by culture and context.

"The gifts of women and their contributions to a synodal church are being recognised more and more.

"We are taking steps, but we have to take even bigger, faster steps, with greater intensity while also taking into account the contexts, respecting the cultures, dialoguing with those cultures and listening to the women themselves."

• Catholic Weekly

Flores, who led the US bishops' national consultation process for the synod, says the bishop delegates spoke out when they were in Rome.

They wanted to show the synod that they recognised "how the Church has not, in her leadership or in the way it works ... appreciated the sacrifice and that in so many parts of the world what continues to make the Church viable is the work of women."

Considering how to make the Church "a more perfect communion where we do work more cohesively in a mutual recognition of gifts" was a particular synod aim, he says.

The delegates hoped the synod would enable us to "model to the world, imperfect as we are, that there is a way to relate to each other that's not all about power and all about control".

The synod's "final document" however reports that action on the possibility of ordaining women as deacons is being postponed.

The interim "final document"

The October synod's concluding document is an interim report pending further investigation, Flores explains.

It is not the final word on the synod's decision, he added. The synod assembly delegates see the agreed final text as "an interim document".

"We need some time to go more deeply into what's marked there."

Between now and the second synod assembly planned for October 2024, "we need to think more about this [text], but we need to think about it together and also think about it in context of our local communities.

"I think there's some theological thinking that has to go on, at least initially, during this year to help us frame the questions" he says.

Source

• NCR Online