Synodality is today’s buzz word in the Catholic Church. It refers to the active participation of the laity in a synod, the Church’s policy-making body. For centuries, however, the Catholic Church has not been a community of equals but of clergy and laity. Since then the Church has been ruled by a hierarchy of Bishops, Cardinals, and Pope who alone could vote in a synod.
Hence, it is remarkably significant that Pope Francis is now reported to be convoking a synod that for the first time ever he requires take in lay people as voting participants. More remarkable is his added instruction that more than half of the latter should be women.
It’s really just a half-step in the right direction. Still, it marks the beginning of the Catholic Church’s trek back to becoming the community of equals Jesus Christ originally gathered around him and entrusted with the mission to proclaim the good news of salvation and witness to his works of mercy to the least of his brethren, who today are the marginalized members of society.
The Catholic Church once enjoyed a high degree of relevance when most states were ruled by royalties that respected its pre-eminent position in society. However, it lost a lot of its relevance when the world democratized and it remained a monarchy, a non-hereditary and celibate one at that. This ruling clerical elite is isolated from the people physically, emotionally and mentally.
Mentally, because priests and bishops undergo rigorous training in all aspects of the Catholic religion while the rest of the faithful are mostly ignorant about the latter and completely dependent on the clergy for answers to their questions on faith and morals.
Physically and emotionally, because there are no jobless priests and bishops who, ironically, have no families to take care of. Hence, they do not experience the insecurities of lay people who have to look for a job and earn enough to house, feed and educate their families. Celibate priests and bishops live in a surreal world and cannot relate to the laity as equals but only from a physically, mentally and emotionally superior place.
Moreover, while the clergy make all the decisions for the whole Church, they are not accountable to its lay members but only to the bishop. Bishops in turn are not accountable to their priests, but to the Papal Nuncio who is accountable only to the Pope.
Secure in their privileged positions, celibate bosses of the laity cannot be expected to rescue the Catholic Church from its irrelevance. Only an empowered laity can do that. Only when the Catholic Church becomes once more a community of equals can the Church begin to be relevant again to people’s lives in modern society.
That’s how significant Pope Francis’ instruction is to include lay people, more than half of whom should be women, in the coming synod. Synodality is veritably the dawning of a new day in the Catholic Church. Or so I hope.