“Lack of participation is a pain point overall, but conversely it also expresses a longing for participation,” Women, young people and volunteers in particular complain about their lack of participation. “We don’t want decisions to be made only about us, but with us.” This is a quote from The report of the German Bishops’ Conference to the World Synod of Bishops 2023. The report wails over the actual situation of the church in Germany: “Whereas roughly 37.5% of Catholics regularly attended Sunday services and participated in parish life in 1970, this figure had fallen to around 10% in 2019. The number of people who vote in elections to the parish council and parochial board has also fallen in line with this, so that the committees and councils only represent the faithful in formal terms today. The associations too are affected by a decline in membership.” The German Synodal Assembly is made up of 230 members forms the Plenary of the Synodal Path, and is to come together a total of five times over a period of three years in order to adopt resolutions. It stated that theologians are afraid of having their teaching licences revoked if they make nuanced, open statements. Lay people feel inferior to, and frequently not understood by, clerics and other people with a theological background in their ability to speak out and have their say. The report speaks of the high-quality liturgy being celebrated in all the German dioceses, and that this is especially evident in the Sunday Eucharist, but it does not say the same about every parish. There is a massive decline in the number of priests, and thus of places to celebrate the Eucharist, the almost exclusively older and female churchgoers, the shrinking congregations. The massive loss of trust in the Church is having an effect here too. The report says: “The willingness of all parties to be changed by the views of others is a mark of growing trust.” Will the German realisation of the reality of the church life open our eyes as well?

Each Christian possesses a personal (prophetic) ability to know the realities of faith on the basis of his or her experience of salvation (the sensusfidei). However, since this experience of salvation is structurally social, the discernment of beliefs and of their correct interpretation can only be determined on the basis of a moral unanimity in the Church (the consensus fidelium).

One diocese in Kerala has apparently said, “We don’t want decisions to be made only about us, but with us.” It has created a scandal. It appears that the only way out is the Synodal path of sensusfidelium which must go through a consensus fidelium. The German Synod adopted a sitting arrangement in the synod hall based on the order of the letter of the each one’s name. Why? To highlight the fundamental equality between all the baptized which is the cornerstone of the theological understanding of the Church as the people of God. Pope Francis said: “the Second Vatican Council went on to say that ‘the whole body of the faithful, who have an anointing which comes from the holy one, cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural sense of the faith (sensusfidei) of the whole people of God’”… “Conflict cannot be ignored or concealed. It has to be faced”… “The best way to deal with conflict … is the willingness to face [it] head on, to resolve it and to make it a link in the chain of a new process.” How do we achieve ‘a sort of cultural covenant resulting in a reconciled diversity?’ The synod is not a parliament, and it reaches its decisions not through a strictly majority principle, but through a processes aimed at building moral agreement. The totality of the faithful who are the depositary of this sensus are not just the lay people but all those who have been baptised, i.e. all Christians included those who are ordained ministers.

Then, a distinction should be established between the sensusfidelium and the consensus fidelium. Each Christian possesses a personal (prophetic) ability to know the realities of faith on the basis of his or her experience of salvation (the sensusfidei). However, since this experience of salvation is structurally social, the discernment of beliefs and of their correct interpretation can only be determined on the basis of a moral unanimity in the Church (the consensus fidelium). The process necessary to reach this consensus, this agreement, this moral unanimity is not based on majority decision-making nor on compromises and negotiations (although these are not to be altogether excluded at some point in the process), but on conversion based on frank speaking (parrhesia) and on humble listening, which are at the basis of all authentic experience of synodality.