“I see synodality is taking root at the local level already in many parts of the church worldwide,” and that’s not surprising “because this is the work of the Spirit,” Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, 70, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference and one of the synod’s president delegates, told America’s Vatican correspondent in this exclusive interview on Oct. 27, after the synod ended.
“Pope Francis would like to see the presence of a truly synodal church as almost a sign of contradiction in the world today,” Archbishop Costelloe said. Such a church would say to the world:
There is a better way of being together, living together, relating to each other, walking together in all of our diversity, in all of our challenges and all our disagreements, but finding a better way to be together a community of people who, in spite of those difficulties, recognize that we belong to each other, that we need each other, that we’re mutually dependent on each other. I think that’s at the heart of synodality, and that is a counterbalance to the way many people in the world operate today.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Gerard O’Connell: The Synod on Synodality has been a significant moment in the history of the church, and you were involved right from the beginning. What is your takeaway?
Archbishop Costelloe: It really is an extraordinary event, a historic event, in the life of the church. It’s a synod that, perhaps more than any other since Vatican II, has the potential to shape the church into the future. Many other synods dealt with particular issues, but this focused on the question: What is the church really, and what is its role in today’s world?
Pope Francis has set something in [motion] from which there should not be any turning back. So much of what the synod is trying to promote is already beginning to happen. There’s a momentum that’s been generated which will continue.
What key points in the final document stand out for you?
I imagine many people will be looking at the document and hunting through it to find something that responds to their concerns, their hopes, their dreams for the church. That’s understandable. I think some will be disappointed that they don’t find precisely what they were hoping for; others will be disappointed to find things that they were hoping wouldn’t be there. But it’s important to remember that the synod is not just the two synod assemblies; it’s a process that started three years ago. It’s been unfolding. If we believe the Holy Spirit’s been at work, then we should have confidence that what has been produced at this stage represents to some degree, and I would say to a large degree, the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the church at this moment in history.
In Part I of the final document, the synod makes a determined effort to explain what synodality means.
The thing we’ve come to understand more deeply through the synod is that we are not a church that has a professional class to whom the mission is entrusted, and then everybody else who are the recipients of that mission. In the past, the priests and the bishops, the religious and some lay people were regarded as the professionals, and they were the ones who carried out the mission, and all the rest of us were the recipients.
But that’s changed completely thanks to the synod. Now we’re realizing that, by virtue of our baptism, every Christian is called to take an active part in the mission of the church, to be the light of Jesus in today’s world. That’s quite a significant change, and the way this plays out in the local church will be crucial for the implementation of the synod.
One thing that stood out in all the inputs from the different countries was a tidal wave requesting the affirmation of women in the church.
That is a major theme that emerged during the synod. It’s probably the one that caused the most discussion. It’s caught up, very much, with the question of ordination, particularly to the diaconate, but also to the wider question of the ordination of women to the priesthood.
Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández was quite clear in the way he dealt with this when he said that the fundamental question is not about ordination; it’s about recognizing the fundamental role that women have to play in enabling the church to be fully the church that the Lord wants it to be. I think this is something that the church will continue to grapple with as we move forward.
Much of the discussion around the role of women in the church did focus in particular on the question of admission to the diaconate, but briefly also on admission to the priesthood. But the real question that emerged as being the central one in the minds of many, was to recognize the reality that women, equally with men, are called to fully participate in the life of the church and in the mission of the church, and how to make that a reality.
In some places, including Australia, there is already quite some progress in this area. In many dioceses in Australia, women have positions of authority of great significance, such as leading large Catholic education offices, leading large health and welfare agencies, and leading our safeguarding efforts with a high level of autonomy and decision-making power. I think in some parts of the church around the world the role of women is much better recognized than in others. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a lot more to do.
The synod acknowledged there’s not a universal model for being church. It recognized that we have different cultures, and we need to accept the diversity and that we will move forward at different speeds. Is this what we’re likely to see?
That was a very interesting development in the synod, the idea that as we move forward, different local churches, according to their own situations, will move at a different pace. When you stop and think about that, it seems obvious because every local church exists within the context of its own cultural realities, and it has to live in those. You can’t impose things on a culture just because theoretically you might agree with them, it needs time.
There’s an important distinction to be made between things that are essential and things that, depending on the local cultural situation, may or may not be possible at any given time. There is a quote in the document relating to Vatican II, where it talks about the need to ensure that diversity not only does it not harm unity but contributes to unity. And that is the synod’s big challenge, to work out how we maintain unity while recognizing the validity of diverse ways of understanding the faith and living the faith, depending on the culture and the social reality where we live.
At the synod’s first session there was a recognition of convergences, divergences, and proposals for further reflection. That seems to have been built into the synodal way of proceeding.
It’s built into what I would call the growing understanding of a synodal spirituality. In the synod documents there is the insistence that we’re a church, we’re not a multicultural, a multinational corporation, or anything like that. We’re a church that is the community of disciples of Jesus, and so at the basis of anything we do—whether it’s about the role of women, whether it’s how we govern the church, or how we make decisions, we have to do all of these things within the context of a spirituality
There was a lot of talk in the synod about changing canon law, changing structures, making some things compulsory that are presently optional. They’re all important but if all we do is make structural changes, I suspect nothing much will really change.
I don’t think it’s any accident that on the eve of the conclusion of the synod, the Holy Father should publish his encyclical on the Sacred Heart to remind us that we’re not just another organization. We’re a different kind of organization. We’re the church, and we have the heart of Christ at the heart of everything that we’re doing. So, I’d like to encourage people while they rush to see the things that they’ve been interested in, to also go to those parts of the document that remind us of who we really are as the people of God, as a community of disciples of Jesus.
The final document has an important section on accountability, transparency and decision making. How do you read it?
A. I’m very encouraged by it. We must be held to account for how we live our lives as Christian disciples. I think all this probably has risen to the surface because of the abuse crisis, but the synod has broadened it and it’s now focusing also on financial accountability, and accountability on how we’re implementing the synod, accountability on how we’re opening spaces for women, accountability as to how we develop and implement our pastoral plans in the local parish or diocese.
It’s a recognition of our mutual responsibility for each other, that if we’re thinking about the governance of the church and leadership of the church, particularly of the ordained ministry, we need to be accountable to God’s people. We need to be able to explain to people what we’re doing to try and help the whole community be faithful to what the Lord is asking of us, to hear from our people what they think about what we’re doing.
Many people have asked me whether this synodal process will end when Francis is no longer pope.
The answer, at least in my mind at this stage, is a very clear No. I think it’s too deeply embedded already, certainly in the minds of those who have been part of the synod—bishops and lay people from all around the world, but also in the minds of all those that have contributed to the various stages of the consultation process. Since my main experience is in Australia, I’d also say that most of the dioceses in Australia have already had a diocesan synod or a diocesan assembly or various kinds of gatherings in order to begin to implement a spirituality of synodality. I think it’s just taking root at the local level, in a way that means that we can’t go back. I’m feeling quite confident about that.
Since you were one of the president delegates of the synod and are president of the Australian Bishops’ Conference, I’d like to ask: If you were to look down the road seven years from now, what would you like to see?
I would like to see, and I’m fairly confident that we will see, that the way in which the church at the local level operates takes on a much more clearly synodal style, by which I mean it engages everybody who wants to be engaged, and who is able to be engaged in an active participation in the life of the church, in whatever way they can do it.
What I’d like to see is the breaking down of this notion that there are the professional Christians—who are the priests, the bishops, the religious and many lay people—and the recognition that we’re all part of this together. We all engage in the best ways we can in our own concrete life situations. We support each other in what we’re doing, we encourage each other in what we’re doing, and we do our best to be a community of faith, rather than a whole group of individuals who individually have our relationship with God. I’d like to see that we’re a community of people of faith, who walk together, who support each other, who recognize our dependence on each other. That’s the vision. I think we’re heading in the right direction.
