By Matters India Reporter
Bengaluru, March 30, 2022: A renowned Asian theologian says the synodal process now underway in the Catholic Church should prepare it to become relevant in the third millennium and respond to modern challenges.
Synodality reflects how the Church’s life and mission should adapt to the modern world. It flows from the Christian value of upholding humans as unique reflection of God’s mystery and image, asserts Father Felix Wilfred, emeritus professor at the State University of Madras, and the founder director of the Asian Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies in Chennai.
The 74-year-old priest was the keynote speaker at a national conference on the theme “Church in India on the Path of Synodality” organized by the department of missiology of Bengaluru’s St Peter’s Pontifical Institute.
The March 21-23 conference was held to help the Church in India reflect on synodal theme, explained Father Antony Lawrence, who head the department.
Father Wilfred expects the synodal process to lead a transition from the bishops’ synod to the synodal Church. For this, drastic structural changes are required, a major theological issue synodal process should address, he asserted.
He said when the Church really practices synodality it would become an inverted pyramid. For this, the canon law that now vests the governance on the clergy, has to change to allow all baptized Catholic to share in the exercise of power.
The theologian questions the existence of two different synodal structures for the Eastern Churches and another for the Latin Church in India when both have the same sociocultural and economic contexts.
He wants to reform the Church’s legal system and divest the legislative, executive and judicial powers vested in a single office. Such an office does not contribute to the synodal practice, he asserted.
Father Wilfred wants the Church to consider humans’ aspirations and anguishes while viewing God’s mystery in them and respecting it.
Quoting renowned German theologian Karl Rahner, the Indian priest said the devout Christian of the future would become either a mystic, who experiences something, or cease to become anything at all.
The Second Vatican Council, he said, has equated the Pope-bishops’ relationship with Peter and other apostles who formed a collective group. “The bishops rule the Church directly in the name of Christ, of course, in communion with the Pope but they are not dependent on him,” Father Wilfred explained.
The theologian noted that synodality is the key concept of Pope Francis’ ecclesiology and the way for the Church in the third millennium. “Pope Francis proposes a macro vision, a thousand year program for the Church in the third millennium,” Father Wilfred explained. He also observed that the Pope’s interest in debates such as whether the Vatican II is a continuation of the past or a break with it.
Father Wilfred observed an increasing unease among Catholics over the Church’s centralized administration and “unsettling” issues of the clergy’s sexual abuse. All this tells upon the Church’s credibility and the witnessing potential, he added.
The theologian also explained that the Church exists in an age of freedom where people want to enjoy freedom and autonomy. “They would like to express what they feel and wish to be listened to and not to be dictated to,” he added. This freedom, he says, belongs to the core of the Gospel and dismissed the patronizing attitude as s pre-modern trend.
According to him, synodality is a phase of freedom while unpredictability is the basic characteristic of the modern age. He wants Catholics to learn from the examples of Jesus, who dialogued with people like the Samaritan woman, Syro-Phoenician woman and Centurion who were non-Jews.
Proper dissemination of information is important to take enlightened decision during the synodal process, the theologian said. Otherwise, prejudices will color the synodal outcome.
Father Lawrence said Pope announced the synodal journey to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops. The Pope announced a three- phase consultations and discernment at diocesan, continental and universal levels.
The Churches began the six-month diocesan journey on October 17, 2021. The process will end in October 2023 in Rome.
Some 600 people attended the national conference where 57 papers were presented by scholars and theologians from all over India.
Hey we know all the theology and ecclesiology. What we want to see is action on the ground. History is witness that the powerful NEVER surrender power willingly or gracefully. That is why Vatican II failed.