Embracing a synodal model of the Church is “messy” but it offers the only path to a “future that’s worth having”, says a leading Australian bishop.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, the president of the Australian Bishops’ Conference, was speaking about the experience of the plenary council, the highest form of gathering for a local church, and one of the leading examples of “synodality” in global Catholicism.
Synodality, a concept which Pope Francis wants to see implemented from the parish upwards, brings people, priests and bishops together to make decisions about the future of the church.
Archbishop Coleridge told a webinar organised by The Tablet last week, “if you are serious, and we are, about listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who is the only one who does know where are going, then it is slow and it is messy trying to hear the voice of the spirit in the vast cacophony or polyphony of the Church.”
He went on: “It’s the only way into the future that’s worth having or a future that God might have in mind for us.”
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With thanks to The Tablet and Christopher Lamb, where this article originally appeared.
The webinar can be watched in full here or below.
