October 4, 2023
The Third Phase of the Synod on Synodality begins today.
The first phase was to gather information at the pew level. Only something like 3% of Catholics responded to that. That information was to be taken in, refined, and developed in diocesan, national, and continental stages.
Those have all occured.
The third phase is split into two parts, the first part starting today, October 4, 2023, at the Vatican. It will run until October 29. The second part will be in October 2024. The third phase is to advise the Pope on the topic “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission.”
The first part, of the third phase, has the objective to design a plan of study in a “synodal style” and to indicate who will be involved in those discussions.
An Instrumentum Laboris has been issued for this part. Such documents are not unique to this, but are generally issued for synods. It is available online. I thought about trying to post it here, but it's just too big to do so. However, it's not too big to scan through.
I have done so, and I'll frankly say I’m not impressed. It does recall, however, in a way one of the results of Vatican II which was to attempt to bring the laity more into the Mass, which did in fact follow Vatican II. I've heard this called an attempt to carry out that aspect of Vatican II. Having said that, I think something that's missed is that the overwhelming majority of laity of the largest Christian religion in the world spends most of their days trying to get through the day, rather than planning on answering surveys and the like. Indeed, as earlier noted, people who have time to do that may not always be the people who are really the most likely to represent the real views and concerns of the laity.
None of this is, I'd note, the attitude that I should have. At age 60, however, I'm jaded on big meetings that require volunteer participation of this type, or for which the participants are selected. Fr. James Martin, S.J. has been selected as a member and I'd definitely not include him.
Martin is one of only 24 Americans selected for this group. Our former Bishop Etienne is one who was selected and I would choose him. University of Wyoming student music student Wyatt Olivas is one chosen, and I don't know anything about him other than he's presented as a youthful Hispanic. I can't judge him, but does he represent the youthful Hispanics in our local parish who are actually from Mexico? Based on photographs of him sitting in shorts in the mountains with a pride wrist band, probably not.
What about the youthful trads and rad trads I see at Mass on Sunday morning, such as the young woman, in her early 20s, who always wears a veil?
Catholics should pray for the success of the synod. But we should also recall that success is not under our own terms. I'd regard (and I'm certain not claiming that everyone should also hold this view) that if the synod just basically went away, that this was a success. A synod that doesn't leave murky "this, but that" results damaging orthodoxy would also be a success in my view. A synod in which the Eastern Rite, of which I'm not a part, took a large, even a lion's share, would be a success in my view.
May God grant the Synod a success on God's terms.
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