Though probably unbeknownst to most Catholics around the world, on October 9  Pope Francis officially opened a two-year global consultation process, all part of a Synod of Bishops on Synodality, which participants hope will help radically change the way the Catholic Church takes decisions.
“My expectation is that a new way of doing things, which will allow us to see synodality being lived at every level of the Church, is now underway,” Spaniard Carmen Peña Garcia, a synod participant, told Crux.
“The Synod should not be reduced to this moment, these two years, because synodality is a call for co-responsibility and co-participation of the entire people of God in the life and mission of the Church, with baptism being the entry card,” she said.
During the next year, a consultation will be launched at a parish level, with the faithful being invited to join in dialogue sessions. In March, there will be time for a diocesan and national gathering, followed by a continental one, with the process, in principle, concluding in Oct. 2023, with a general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, set to take place in Rome in October.
On Saturday, the people on hand were mostly laity, priests and religious, with some countries not even having Bishops in the Synod Hall. This was so because the Vatican’s Synod office had requested continents to send representatives, not each country individually, among other reasons due to COVID-19 restrictions on travel.
Some participants had to embark on a months-long process to get a greenlight from their governments to fly to Rome, as was the case of lay woman Susan Pascoe from Australia. All of the Bishops from Down Under are currently taking part in a national-level Plenary Council, the first session of which is being held this week, so none came. Upon her return home, Pascoe will have to isolate in a hotel for two weeks.
A member of the Synod’s Commission on Methodology who has worked both for the Australian Church and the Australian government, she told Crux she values “the authenticity of the process. I see hope in this process, and I trust in it. So, I hope other Catholics will answer the invitation issued by the Pope for them to participate.”
An invitation for all the baptized to take part, Peña Garcia said, has been issued, but it not only applies to them, because “the Church wants to be in dialogue with the world too. I think we have to encourage people to take part, so that you don’t only get the voices of the usual suspects, but well, there’s also the matter of free will!”