Hot-button issues raised by Vatican synod called 'a mechanism' to understand synodal method

(OSV News) -- The goal of the second and final meeting of the Synod on Synodality underway at the Vatican is understanding and exercising synodality in the church, rather than immediately resolving specific issues, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' synodality expert said.

Julia McStravog, the USCCB's senior adviser for the synod, said that while some people may be disappointed that the synod will not resolve or otherwise move the conversation related to several controversial issues, she thinks that the work of the synod is, in part, "to help us prepare to answer these questions" and others like them.

At last year's meeting, much of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops' external attention centered on controversial questions such as changes to seminary formation, the possibility of women's ordination and ministry expectations for LGBTQ-identifying Catholics, topics that surfaced in worldwide consultations during the synod's two-year preparation process.

While synod preparatory documents noted such topics, earlier this year Pope Francis entrusted their discussion to 10 study groups, effectively taking them off the table for the synod assembly's second-year discussion. Leaders of those study groups reported on their progress on the synod's opening day Oct. 2. Those presentations accompanied brief videos about each study group and published written reports. The study groups' work is expected to conclude in June.

"From my perspective, it was never about those hot-button issues anyway, and so the U.S. synod team never approached it with this assumption or understanding that any of those topics would be resolved through the synod or by the synod," she told OSV News Sept. 27.

"I -- and the team -- really understood them to be mechanisms in which to help us figure out what synodality looks like," she said. "They're incredibly important questions, all of which could have their own synods, have their own three-year consultation process just on the one question out of the many."

On the topic of whether women could be ordained deacons, for example, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and head of a study group exploring the topic, told the synod assembly that Pope Francis "does not consider the question mature."

"The opportunity for a deepening remains open, but in the mind of the Holy Father, there are other issues still to be deepened and resolved before rushing to speak of a possible diaconate for some women," he said. "Otherwise, the diaconate becomes a kind of consolation for some women, and the most decisive question of the participation of women in the church remains unanswered."

McStravog sees synodality as a tool to help Catholics constructively engage complicated and potentially divisive issues.

"We're not ready to answer these questions in a synodal way," she said. "We're still figuring out what exactly synodality looks like in the church, and that's really what I think they're going to be doing in the second part (of the synod), is like, what are the building blocks to set this foundation to have these conversations, to really begin that. It really is a culture shift, and culture shifts are not fun, they're not headline grabbing … they're gradual."

Richard Coll, executive director for Justice, Peace and Human Development at the USCCB and one of several lay synod delegates representing the U.S., said that his experience at the first synod meeting and the interim has laid the foundation to "really focus on what the 'instrumentum laboris' (the synod's working document) is calling us to do, which is to really refine our understanding of the process of synodality, and see how we can implement at each level of our church life some of the benefits and some of the fruits of the synodal process."

And while the synod is expected to conclude Oct. 27, "the synod might be over, but synodality is not over," McStravog said.

That implementation "is dependent upon their pastors and upon their bishops," McStravog said. "How are we really going to get the pastors and bishops to embrace synodality in a way so that it does move the people in the pews?"

"So much depends on the openness to the synodal process at each level," Coll added, noting that he is aware of U.S. parishes that have "a great deal of interest" in synodality and plans to hold meetings on the topic after the synod's conclusion, and others "where the word 'synodality' never pops up."

"That's the kind of challenge that we will experience going forward to try to make it possible for those who really do want to live in the synodal experience to have the support of communities in the parish and diocese that will make it possible," he said.

In his opening comments to the synod assembly Oct. 2, Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of General Secretary of the Synod, described the synod as "essentially a school of discernment."

"It is the church gathered together with Peter to discern together," he said. "A synodal church is a proposal to today's society: discernment is the fruit of a mature exercise of synodality as a style and method," defining "ecclesial discernment" as "the listening to one another to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church."

Clergy and laypeople share a responsibility for synodality, McStravog said, "so things not being done in a synodal way is kind of denying folks the exercise of their responsibility towards the church, or exercise of co-responsibility, and people want to be co-responsible."