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)

Calling for major decentralisation of Vatican and papal authority, he said this could be achieved through the creation of regional bishops' conferences and synods of bishops with decision-making authority.

Archbishop Quinn, who has often advocated reform of Church governance, said shared bishops' decision-making with the pope is urgently needed.

Such decision-making "is not the result of a juridical decree, not the result of the action of a council, and not the result of the decision of any pope".

Rather, he said, it is rooted in the ordination of the bishop and the doctrine that he is a successor to the apostles of Jesus.

However, he maintained, "a very large number of bishops are of the opinion that there is not any real or meaningful collegiality in the Church today".

The emeritus archbishop, who was speaking at a symposium on Vatican II at Stanford University, said local bishops "have no perceptible influence" in the appointment of bishops. Instead, appointments are made in Rome, often by men who do not adequately know local diocesan needs.

Introducing regional bishops' conferences and deliberative episcopal synods would involve separating two aspects of the function of the papacy — "the unity of faith and communion" and administration.

The pope would have "the burden of fostering unity, collaboration and charity", but Church administration would become more regional.

In such a reconfiguration, the appointment of bishops, creation of dioceses, questions of liturgy and other matters of Catholic practices would be up the regional bishops' conferences, he said.

In the case of Asia and Africa these would enable local churches to develop their liturgy, spirituality and practice in accord with their own cultures, He said there has been a long-standing complaint from both Africa and Asia that "they feel impoverished and constrained in not being able to integrate elements of their culture into Church life".

Source:

National Catholic Reporter

Image: Intermountain Catholic