In the immediate aftermath of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus went off to the mountains to pray. The apostles embarked on a boat to cross to the other side of the lake of Galilee. The sea was rough, and the night was windy. The going was tough. In the early hours of the morning Jesus approaches the apostles’ boat walking on the water. The apostles are terrified, mistaking Jesus for a ghost. Jesus reassures them: ‘Courage, it is I. Do not be afraid.’ It is Peter, inevitably, who responds: ‘Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you over the water.’ One word from Jesus: ‘Come.’ Peter gets out of the boat and walks towards Jesus over the water. Then, ‘seeing the strength of the wind’, he doubts – and immediately begins to sink. ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus stretches out his hand and draws him up: ‘Man of little faith, why did you doubt?’
I must confess that in the lead-up to the first session in October 2023 of the Synod on Synodality, I more than a little resembled Peter. Embarking on synodal waters, initially I was apprehensive. Would anything substantial come of this Pope Francis’ initiative? But then, as we went through the stages of synodal consultation – parish, diocesan, national and continental – confidence grew, I walked on water. Then, however, doubts. Would the working document for the first session (Instrumentum Laboris: IL) be drowned in Roman caution and curial control? Would the focus be exclusively on the process of synodality, and would the voices of renewal and reform that resonated through the various stages of synodal consultation be relegated to the second session in October 2024: the place of women in the Church, reforming and sharing governance, authority and responsibility, reaching out to the alienated, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the divorced and remarried, the LGBTIQ+, investigating priestly celibacy and seminary training, addressing clericalism and hierarchicalism?
Like Peter, I doubted. Was it sinking time?
But then, on June 20, came the text of Instumentum Laboris. It was like Jesus stretching out his hand to rescue Peter, the Holy Spirit reaching out to the people of God.
To be sure, the first half of the 60 page document is devoted to elucidating what is expected of the synodal interchange and encounter: the preliminaries of prayer and reflection in preparation for the Synod; humble listening to one another and the Holy Spirit; freedom and fearlessness (parrhesia) in expressing one’s views; listening once again; only then dialogue and interchange; accepting and respecting difference, discerning under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; reaching consensus.
All this certainly needed to be spelt out – it is the modus operandi of the synodal process. But the working document, IL, does not stop there. The next thirty pages are devoted to addressing the abovementioned priorities that have emerged from the various levels of consultation that Church members have engaged in since 2021. But these are presented as questions for consideration not as a text to be edited. Under the overarching themes of community, mission, and participation all the neuralgic concerns that have emerged with surprising unanimity from the national and continental consultations are proposed and dissected. There is even a suggestion that Canon Law may need to be amended to reflect the effect of synodality invading the traditional territory of the hierarchy and clericalism.
Now, one should not expect that all these issues will be resolved at the first session of the Synod. But the fact that they are explicitly on the agenda of the Instrumentum Laboris is a step in the right direction. Whatever tentative and preliminary conclusions may be arrived at, they will need to be taken away and discerned over the twelve months leading up to the second session. This was the pattern at the Second Vatican Council. It led to significant reorientations (think ecumenism and religious liberty) and even reforms (think the liturgy).
The Instrumentum Laboris is, then, a surprisingly refreshing and engaging document. It does reflect what has been going on in parishes, dioceses and conferences over the past three years. There are no ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, no beliefs or practices that are excluded a priori from the agenda. It is the ‘open tent’, the image of the Church that emerged in the continental stage of the consultation. It may well set the stage for a succession of synods: ‘Women in the Church’, for instance.
We are walking on water again!
Bill Uren, SJ, AO, is a Scholar-in-residence at Newman College at the University of Melbourne. A former Provincial Superior of the Australian and New Zealand Jesuits, he has lectured in moral philosophy and bioethics in universities in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth and has served on the Australian Health Ethics Committee and many clinical and human research ethics committees in universities, hospitals and research centres.
This article was originally published on Eureka Street, a publication of the Australian Jesuits. Reproduced with permission.
