As we prepare the November issue of America for press, the delegates to the second session of the Synod on Synodality have just arrived in Rome and have begun their retreat before starting their meetings on Oct. 2. As we did last year, we have sent a team from the magazine to Rome to cover it all.
After the first session of the synod last year, I wrote that focusing exclusively on what might change in church teaching or discipline—whether in anticipation or in resistance—is too narrow and risks missing the grace God is offering.
Many would like the synod to discuss the neuralgic issues in the life of the church, such as clergy shortages, declining religious practice, the role of women, teachings on sexuality and the church’s welcome for marginalized communities, but the agenda set for the second session does not prioritize any of those. Instead, after the first session, these issues were referred to working groups that will give interim reports during the October session and then make final reports to Pope Francis in June 2025.
What is on the agenda, as given in the instrumentum laboris, the working document for the session, is “how to be a missionary synodal church.” And yes, the italics on “how” are there in the title of the document distributed by the Vatican, in every translation that uses characters for which italics are possible.
This kind of stilted language can occasion eyerolls. I will confess that I have indulged in more than one—maybe many more than one—private rant about the lack of media savvy involved in the name “Synod on Synodality.” Italics for emphasis are often a red flag for editors, as are piling on adjectives (“missionary synodal”) or frequently repeated series (“communion, participation, mission”). As a writer, I keep learning and relearning that leaning on such verbal crutches should prompt a pause to ask: Do I know what I am really trying to say?
In this case, I think that question belongs to every Catholic, and the challenge is to ask it of ourselves, not just to ask it of the synodal process. Do I know what I am really trying to say within the church and about the church? Do I really know what I am called to say in charity to those with whom I disagree? Do I know what both my words and my life say to fellow Catholics and to the world about faith in Jesus Christ?
I think that one reason that the language is stilted is because the church does not have much experience in having forthright conversations among believers about topics where we disagree. We have plenty of experience disagreeing, but we usually do so in silos of the like-minded, talking to each other about why those other folks are wrong. When those disagreements do become public, they often take the form of advocacy and sometimes even pressure tactics, effectively lobbying the Holy See to embrace or decry some position. But they rarely become conversation.
That is where the Synod on Synodality has broken new ground. And it is so new that whatever seeds have been planted have only barely begun to sprout, and are certainly not yet ready for harvest. We will have to wait to see what has fallen on good soil and what is surrounded by rocks or choked by weeds.
But the plowing and furrowing are real. The church is having direct conversations, among Catholics who disagree, and our communion with each other is holding. Thanks be to God.
Holding is not to say that there is no tension; there is plenty, and you will read about it in America’s coverage of the synod. I think, however, one of the fruits that the church may eventually harvest from this time is the recognition that not all tension is crisis.
When Pope Francis was first elected, and I was writing for The Jesuit Post before I had ever imagined being missioned to America, I said that what he most wanted to change in the church was us. I quoted a 2007 interview in which he said: “Fidelity is always a change, a blossoming, a growth. The Lord brings about a change in those who are faithful to him.”
Let us pray that the synod may be an experience of fidelity and that the Lord may use it to bring about a change in us. Let us be willing to pause before we determine that what is on the synod’s agenda, or missing from it, is weed or wheat. And let us ask first how the experience of the synod calls us to conversion before we set out to explain to other Catholics what it asks of them.
America is publishing daily “Synod Diaries” throughout the synod, written by our on-the-ground team covering the event. To receive these in your inbox, subscribe today.
