Promoting Synodality in the Church Today

Pope Francis has called the universal Church to engage in synodality. While this is a call to participate in the current Synod of Bishops, he really seeks to transform the Church’s way of being. It is in line with the call with which he began his papacy: the call to a pastoral conversion that would lead to a renewed understanding of the Church as always engaged in the evangelizing mission of Christ.

Synodality is important to us at the Congar Institute because this way of being, focused on participation, communion, and mission, is the basis for all ministry in the Church. It also is a fulfillment of the work that our namesake, Yves Congar, OP, began in his long years of research and his intense and tireless efforts at Vatican II. Therefore, not only is it necessary to promote formation for Synodality so that the baptized can participate fruitfully in it, but it is also the very nature of synodality that it forms disciples for mission. For this reason, the Congar Institute from our earliest years has assisted various home mission dioceses in creating synodal events for their people. We’ve operated under the conviction that any church truly listening to what the Holy Spirit was calling her to today would always discern a high priority for lay leadership formation. We have never been disappointed.

Working with local steering committees in Western Nebraska, Utah, Central California, Southern Michigan, and elsewhere, we’ve helped the church to be a listening church, journeying with her people to a new place defined by what she was hearing from her people. At the time, we did not call this synodality. We called it pastoral planning, but we knew that what we were engaged in was prayerful discernment of the whole church to understand what the Holy Spirit was calling the church to on its journey to God’s Reign. For this reason, the Congar Institute is well equipped to be a resource for the Church pursuing a synodal way of being.

The Congar Institute recently participated in two important events related to Synodality. The first was a gathering of national organizations convened by the Leadership Roundtable to become aware of what each was doing in this field and what resources we have for promoting synodality in the U.S. Church. Participating were several organizations that were new to me and some we have collaborated with on a number of previous projects.

The second was a webinar produced on Nov. 22. I appeared on a panel with Archbishop Tobin (Newark), Kerry Alys Robinson (Leadership Roundtable and the Raskob Foundation), and Sr. Nathalie Becquart, xmcj, (first woman to serve as Under-Secretary for the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops). It was co-sponsored by the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth and the Catholic Apostolate Center. The topic was Synodality and Lay Leadership from the Magisterium’s Perspective. This was the second webinar in the series coproduced by the two entities entitled “Synodality and the Laity: Exploring the Communion, Participation, and Mission of the Lay Apostolate and Lay Ministry”. This webinar explored the Church's vision of laity and the Church’s new engagement with the concept of missionary synodality with lay leadership in the Church. You can watch a YouTube video of the webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AL4b5eMWCw

The Congar Institute is committed to promoting synodality and to facilitating it especially in those places where resources are limited. We can assist these mission churches to understand how they can creatively engage in synodality in a sustainable and, just as important, an inclusive and interculturally skilled manner. We are able to assist dioceses and other ecclesial entities such as Catholic universities and hospital systems to plan for synodality and to implement their plans. Just as important, we are committed to helping the church to understand how to sustainably manage to make synodality a way of life for the church.