Throughout October 2024, Br Mark O’Connor FMS, Vicar for Communications for the Diocese of Parramatta and the Pope Francis Fellow at Newman College, University of Melbourne, will provide reports on the second session of the Synod on Synodality in Rome.
This is his first letter for Monday October 7th.
October is one of the best times to visit the Eternal City.
The capital traditionally enjoys an “Indian summer” known as the Ottobrata Romana, a period of usually balmy weather and wine-soaked festivities linked to the vendemmia grape harvest.
After the last of the summer festivals drew to an end in early September, Rome welcomes a new season of cultural events.
But I am actually back in Rome to report on the progress of the synodal journey of our global church! (Disclaimer: I have to admit that I do also enjoy the Roman food and wine here…in moderation, of course!)
As you can imagine, it’s been an interesting start with Timothy Radcliffe OP’s two-day retreat at the beginning. For all these marvellous talks in one place, click here to listen, view, read and ponder these profound meditations.
These were followed by a moving Penitential Prayer Service in St Peter’s and the formal opening of the second session of the Synod. As with the 2023 Synod, the delegates, men and women, lay, clerical, members of consecrated life and bishops including the Bishop of Rome – are gathering once more in small groups around round tables, to better facilitate encounter and dialogue. In addition, 10 study groups are meeting on special topics.
Naturally, it’s hard, right now, to get a handle on precisely where all these things are heading in these very early days.
The Synod delegates have again, quite rightly, been asked to respect the confidentiality of the process. I am sure, however, points of progress amidst the inevitable tensions will eventually emerge.
Views about the Synod itself and its directions, as usual, do vary widely. They range from the bitter, snarky, and negative opinion pieces that specialise in imitating the hard right conservative USA Catholic ideological opponents of Pope Francis, to the overly idealised ‘takes’ that are, perhaps understandably, impatient with the speed of church renewal and reform.
Personally, I prefer the insights of the wonderful Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. He understands the real significance of the synodal vision of Pope Francis which is recovering the vision of a Vatican II church that resists:
“Too many answers choking off questions and too little sense of the enigmas that accompany a life of faith; these are what stop a conversation from ever starting between our Church and much of our world.”
Yes, indeed. Pope Francis has allowed real questions to be asked and not stifled dialogue in our church. That’s something we should never forget when understanding that the whole Synod process is actually retrieving a core element of the Tradition.
Fatuous critics who claim Catholic people don’t understand the concept of ‘synodality’, trivialise the intelligence of most Catholics. Most Catholics understand only too well and far too often still experience the malevolence of clericalism. They most certainly know that while the church is not a democracy, neither is it a dictatorship or monarchy.
For other insightful commentators who, like Taylor, also apprise the historical significance of these epochal Synodal days in terms of the reception of Vatican II, I recommend reading Massimo Faggioli and Michael Sean Winters.
And not to forget the excellent analysis by Austen Ivereigh in this week’s issue of The Tablet. If you’re not a subscriber, you can read it online for free by registering here.
Yes, it’s very important for us all to remember that Pope Francis is constantly inviting us, with both his words and actions, to encounter others in a spirit of dialogue. He always rejects confrontational discourse. For we all know the example Pope Francis has been giving to the world. His message is simple: it’s all about encounter.
His is a vision of church and society in which different people can live together, complement each other, and illuminate each other, although this doesn’t exclude arguments or distrust. We can learn something from everyone; no one is useless, no one is expendable. Someone on the periphery sees things that I don’t see, because he or she has a perspective that I don’t have and observes reality from a different position.
The Pope sees a great danger in simple solutions to complex problems, settling debates before the discussion is over. This helps us understand why he cannot be pulled into coming down too early on one side or the other of a controversial issue. He considers it an exercise of control, stifling a process still working itself out under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and to trust the process.
Conclusion
The Spirit ‘blows where it wills’ (cf. John 3:8). The Spirit can certainly be a Comforter. But the Spirit is also a Disruptor. (By the way, there is no better and more readable study on Pope Francis as a ‘disruptor’ than Michael. W. Higgins new book The Jesuit Disruptor: A Personal Portrait of Pope Francis.
Predictably, these aforesaid tensions and moments of ‘disruption’ are already emerging at this October Synod especially regarding the role of women in the church.
How this will all play out in the weeks, months, and years ahead only the Holy Spirit knows!
After all, God is our ultimate future, not the institutional forms of the church here below…which are necessarily always far short of the Kingdom! As St Paul VI the Great, boldly proclaimed: “Only the kingdom therefore is absolute, and it makes everything else relative.” Evangelii Nuntiandi (16).
That said, in the days ahead, I will try to report on the moments of such ‘disruption’ but also the moments where the Spirit is our ‘Comforter’!
But I end this first update with a note of prayer.
Twenty years ago, at the age of 66, Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Michigan, passed on to the Lord.
Untener was indeed ahead of his time, living out the pastoral vision of synodality, which as Dr Orm Rush reminds is: ‘Vatican II in a nutshell’.
This pastoral style was reflected in his greeting to a meeting soon after his consecration as bishop: “Hello, I’m Ken, and I’ll be your waiter.”
But what he might be most remembered for is a prayer he wrote in 1979 for Cardinal Dearden of Detroit. For some unknown reason it was attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero and became known as “The Romero Prayer.”
Though it expresses some of the spirituality of Romero, it is the work of Bishop Untener. It is a very good prayer to pray each day of this second session of the Synod on Synodality:
It helps now and then to step back
and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime
only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise
that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection;
no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds
that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations
that will need further development.
We provide yeast
that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realising that.
This enables us to do something,
and do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter
and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.
See Untener’s life examined in his own words at https://littlebooks.org/products/my-name-is-ken
Brother Mark O’Connor FMS