By R M Emmanuel Akilan

Devakottai, Oct 16, 2023: “I know that you are all Jesuits, but are you all Catholics?” asked a bishop in northeastern India when a group of Jesuits met him during the first phase of the Synod.

This sarcastic and pessimistic attitude was shared by many conservative cardinals, bishops, priests and the laity when Pope Francis called a Synod on Synodality. It was not a momentary decision taken at the spur of the moment but formed after prayerful dialogue, discussions, deliberations and discernment.

The synod was a call of hope against hope. Many warned it would be a disaster that would make our Church weak and lame. But the Pope never shied away from the decision that has started to change the understanding of our mother Church. “Let’s be a welcoming Church. The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open,” he added.

Way to the Opening

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, synod is an ecclesiastical governing and advisory council. Synodality is journeying together as the People of God listening to each person as a member of the Church to understand how God might be speaking to all of us.

The three words in the logo in itself spoke for the ultimate aim for which the synod was called, “communion, participation, and mission”. The Holy Father wanted this synod to be as participative and universal as our Church was in dire need of listening to her people who were yearning to pour their hearts out. Dr. Richard Declue in his article, “The Synod on Synodality, Part 2: “Process and Purpose”, very clearly spells out that “The aim of this synod, then, is more practical than doctrinal”.

Crafted by the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the moving source behind this synod as envisioned by Pope Francis. The synod was well thought, meticulously planned, and strategically structured in three phases.

The first phase of the synod began in October 2021 in each diocese under the guidance of the local bishop who began collecting input from the faithful of that diocese, following documents and a questionnaire sent by the Vatican. Then, the dioceses submitted their contributions to their Episcopal Conference which assembled to discuss the results further, eventually producing a draft text synthesizing the process and results which was sent to the General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops along with the contributions of the individual dioceses. After consulting these contributions, the General Secretariat drafted a first “Instrumentum Laboris”.

The second, continental phase involved a dialogue between the bishops of a given continent about the first draft.

The first session of the third and final universal phase is underway. The second session of the Ordinary General Assembly will take place in October 2024.

The core of this beautiful synod is walking together, listening and discerning what the Holy Spirit is telling us, without any itinerary, or predetermined path. We are on the path of discovering together, day by day, the way to travel to the Eternal God who is the source and summit of love.

Expectations Abound

When I met a young man in one of the ministry places, he seemed worried. After spending quality time with him, the question he raised still echoes in my ears, “Will my voice also be heard during the Synod”?

Likewise, many lay people around the globe share the same question and they look eagerly for answers from the Church. This synod has lit the fire of listening to every voice spoken and silent during every phase. The Pope said about listening, “In synod the priority is to listen, to listen to the Holy Spirit above all. Listening to what others have to say and what those who are “far from me” have to say, sharing their experience.”

Pope Francis has reiterated that the synod is not a parliament where decisions are not to be cast in votes but a divine discourse to be heeded to. The people have garnered strength from this process, which has made them believe that the Church is still on their side – the side of the poor, oppressed, marginalized, people in the peripheries, and finally the last, least and the lost.

All this has happened because of listening, a very important quality and value which has lost its sheen and glamour in this noisy world. Are we able to really listen to what others say? On the first hand, do we really ‘listen’? As people say, God has given two ears and one mouth, only to ‘speak less’ and ‘listen more’.

All the expectations of the people of God are expected to be heard in the corridors of power as their hue and cry is from the most deserved faithful who wait eagerly for the blossoming of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Round Tables Meant Something

“Those who have in mind the images of previous synod assemblies, prepare to be surprised when they see those of October 2023,” said Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa, consultor of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. This synod was to break barriers which have been constructed all along.

Many new, simple yet powerful and meaningful things were used to drive home the real meaning of the synod. From holding the meeting not in descending rows in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall but in Paul VI hall, divided into many groups with 11 members inclusive of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, Religious and the laity sitting in round tables and sharing in smaller groups to foster dialogue under the premise of equality before God are all new features of this extraordinary synod.

All the proceedings of this synod are tied to confidentiality. The current regulations emphasize that “each of the participants is bound to confidentiality and discretion regarding both their own interventions and the interventions of other participants.”

In previous synods we went down familiar paths, we had general guidelines ready. But this time, the synodal assembly was prepared by the people of God, by every single baptized person each according to his or her own charism, in a livelier, more real and tangible manner.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

‘We will never change the world by going to Church, we will only change the world by being the Church’. This anonymous quote which I read long ago, often boosts my hope in spite of many storms which often rock our Church. This synod is not an answer for all the problems faced, but would surely throw some hopeful insights towards a faith-filled future.

Having Him at heart, working for Him with our hands, trying to walk in His teachings and living for His sake would surely make us partakers of the second coming. I cannot comment much on the outcome of the synod, but I have a very strong sense of belief that it would send waves of changes, hope, acceptance, mercy and love for the betterment. Having this faith not only in the proceedings of the synod but in the Holy Spirit who is the constructor, convener and culmination of this movement.

Will the end be a new beginning?

Finally, as beautifully said by St. Teresa of Calcutta, “Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart”.

In this way, a “synodal Church” is a Church which listens, in which mutual listening of everyone, we would have something to learn. This listening not only with our ears but hearts, naturally calls us to change our ways of doing things, in order to become more and more who we truly are as a Church: walking together, amidst the entire human family humanity, guided by the Holy Spirit.

Let me conclude with the words from the homily of Pope Francis at the St. Peter’s Basilica during the opening Mass for the synod on synodality on Sunday, October 10: “Dear brothers and sisters, let us have a good journey together! May we be pilgrims in love with the Gospel and open to the surprises of the Holy Spirit. Let us not miss out on the grace-filled opportunities born of encounter, listening and discernment. In the joyful conviction that, even as we seek the Lord, he always comes with his love to meet us first.”

(Jesuit scholastic R M Emmanuel Akilan is doing his regency at De Britto Higher Secondary School, Devakottai, Tamil Nadu.)