Among the many achievements of Francis during his years in the Vatican, I would regard his designing and launching the Synodal Pathway as the most significant.
It’s aim, as I understood it, was to change the way the Church was structured, and how it was governed. By emphasising Baptism as the fundamental sacrament, it established the equality of all believers. I could see from the start that this indeed was radical, at least in the sense that it promised to give a voice to all, and that decisions and developments in the Church would no longer be the exclusive domain of the clerical caste, but that all would have a say in decisions. For me, this had great promise.
I represented the Association of Catholic Priests at the two major Synodality gatherings in Ireland, in Athlone and Kilkenny.
The first one, in Athlone, was a marvellous event. There was a real sense of energy and enthusiasm about it. And there was openness like I had never experienced in all my years in the Church. Everything seemed to be on the table, and there was no suggestion of any effort to exclude anything that had come up from the people. I came away from that with a pep in my step, believing that we really had set out on a journey which would at long last put the teachings of the Second Vatican Council – the event that brought me into the priesthood – into practice.
The gathering in Kilkenny was about two years later. I sensed early on that there was something different about it, and I still don’t fully understand the reason why it was so different. In place of the energy of Athlone there was a deadness about this gathering; in place of the openness and freedom in Athlone there seemed to be control, and the exclusion of certain topics, with an emphasis on subjects that were, in my view, ‘safe’. I left before the end, feeling deflated.
The Synodal process was not confined to Ireland; it was taking place right across the Catholic world, and it was remarkable the similarity of the issues that were emerging.
But then, some months ago, a statement emerged from the Dicastery for the Congregation of the Faith in the Vatican declaring that women could not in any circumstances, be ordained deacons. It was a Synodal bombshell, in that it was a dogmatic statement from central authority which was contrary to so much that was being discussed in the Synodal Pathway. What it was really saying, in my view, is that all this Synodal talk about equality and giving everyone a voice was fantasy. The authority remained where it always was, in the Curia in the Vatican. So we could talk as much as we liked in synodality, but it would get us nowhere.
In a recent issue of The Tablet Sarah McDonald recounted an interview she had with Archbishop Eamon Martin, the head of the Irish Church. He spoke about The Synodal Pathway, describing it as the Church ‘courageously setting out on a journey’ to give ‘new life and new growth’ to the Church. Referring to the congress coming up in Autumn he said that the three main topics were youth, faith and family. Not a mention of the crisis of priesthood, the women’s issue, the problem of Church teaching on LGBT people, or many other areas needing change that have surfaced in the last few years. It seems now we have gone back to very safe and uncontentious topics.
And to cap it all, Sarah’s article concluded by quoting the Archbishop as saying the following:
“The Irish Synodal Pathway never at any stage pretended that they are going to change the Church’s teaching on women in the priesthood”.
So, no point in talking about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am losing hope in the process.
