After almost a month in Rome, Bishop Nicholas Hudson, a papal pick for our delegation from England and Wales, offers this concluding reflection on the second session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops – the so-called Synod on Synodality.
The end of our synodal journey was powerful. Archbishop John Wilson, Bishop Marcus Stock and I found ourselves gathered with all the other Synod participants “around Peter” to contemplate with him St Peter’s Chair. This 7th century throne, which possibly houses parts of St Peter’s primitive seat, had been brought out for our veneration at the end of the closing Mass. It stood before Bernini’s wonderfully refurbished baldacchino. This baldacchino, Pope Francis reminded us, is designed to frame the image of the Holy Spirit which is the focal point of St Peter’s Basilica. Time and again the Holy Father had reminded us that it is the Holy Spirit who is the chief protagonist of our synodal journey.
In a Votive Mass to launch our final week, Cardinal Grech recalled the long journey we had undertaken since 2021, when we embarked on a listening process which had engaged the whole Church. What we were about in this last stage was a reaping of the fruits which this journey had borne. These we gathered up in the Final Document [FD] on which we voted on 26 October.
Writ large across the whole text of this Final Document is a spirituality of listening. This spirituality seemed to be amplified in the homily with which the Pope closed the Synod. He broke for us the bread of the Gospel account of Jesus healing the blind Bartimaeus. Just as Jesus heeds Bartimaeus’s cry, the Pope urged us to heed the cry of those who look to the Church for meaning and help; “not (to be) a static Church but a missionary Church that walks with her Lord through the streets of the world,” he said. He enjoined upon us to “stand once more, and carry the joy of the Gospel through the streets of the world.”
Frequent were his references to the joy of the Gospel. He urged all of us who had been a part of this Synod to “take up the cry… of those who wish to discover the joy of the Gospel.” This seemed to amplify the Final Document’s affirmation that “to evangelise is ‘the essential mission of the Church… the… vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity’ (Evangelii Gaudium 14).”
The Synod confirmed the centrality of synodality in evangelisation by stating not only that to evangelise is “the essential mission of the Church” but also that “synodality and mission are intimately linked: mission illuminates synodality and synodality spurs to mission.” (FD 32)
One of the many synodal fruits waiting to be harnessed to the New Evangelisation is Conversation in the Spirit. This way of listening has been at the heart of our synodal journey; and was affirmed as such by the Assembly as “a tool that… enables authentic listening to discern what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. Its practice has elicited joy, awe and gratitude and has been experienced as a path of renewal that transforms individuals, groups, and the Church.” (FD 45). Conversations with people who stand in such different relationships to the Church – with “the faithful who regularly take part in community worship… the baptised who lack a meaningful relationship to the Church… (and) those who do not know Jesus Christ or who have always rejected him” (Evangelii Gaudium 14) are all waiting to serve a deeper realisation of that New Evangelisation called for not only by Pope Francis but also by Pope St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
Diverse other fruits were gathered up as we voted on the Final Document. Some of these have a clear and direct relation to the Church’s mission to evangelise. The “spirituality of listening” which has pervaded the whole journey is surely uppermost. There was frequent talk of a synodality of the heart; a sense that “synodality is primarily a spiritual disposition.” (FD 40). The publication of the Pope’s encyclical Dilexit Nos, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the very last days of the Synod seemed to emphasise the priority of an interior synodal disposition; to give expression to that ‘relational conversion’ which has been so central to the vision of this last month’s synodal conversations.
Relational conversion could indeed be said to characterise a good number of the key achievements of the Assembly’s long and conscientious discernment these last several weeks – to offer just a few headings: the obligation of bishops and priests to listen; a wide participation in decision-making to be effected; maximising women’s role in decision-making at all levels of the Church; the need for transparency, accountability and evaluation at every level of decision-making and governance; the recommendation that diverse participatory councils, from parish pastoral councils to diocesan pastoral councils, be mandatory; that the People of God have a say in the appointment of bishops – in short, that synodality is essential to how the Church understands itself, that it “is a constitutive dimension of the Church” (FD 28) indeed.
Staying with us at the Venerable English College throughout the last month was Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth, Australia. He and I had the privilege of meeting one evening with the seminarians and staff to share our experience of the Synod. The students’ questions we found to be well-chosen and insightful. I was particularly encouraged by the seminarian who asked if such a vision as we were painting, of a Church transformed by synodality, did not presume, surely, a great deal of formation needing to be put in place. I was pleased to affirm that formation for all the People of God, integral and ongoing, had indeed been a recurring theme, in both this Assembly and the previous one. The observation in the Assembly that no one is an expert in synodality had seemed to resonate deeply; that “we learn about synodality by doing it”. It was good, as well, to be able to share with the seminarians perspectives on what might be anticipated in a more synodal approach to priestly formation, as the Synod calls for.
We had shared with the seminarians that, as bishops from the United Kingdom and Australia, we had found ourselves saying quite often that there is much synodality already taking place in our countries. But that made the words with which Pope Francis concluded the formal proceedings on Saturday night resonate with us no less deeply. The Holy Father chose to say, “There are already highly concrete indications in the Document than can be a guide for the mission of the Churches, in their specific continents and contexts… concrete actions that serve God’s people.”
We heard Pope Francis telling us the challenge in countries like ours is now to make synodality still more concrete – to build on all that is already synodal and begin to realise the fullness of the vision which he has entrusted to us.
I find it striking, just days after the Synod has ended, to recall the vision with which Pope Francis set the Church on this path in 2021. “If we want speak of a Synodal Church,” he said, “we need content, means and structures that can facilitate dialogue and interaction within the People of God, especially between priests and laity. This requires changing certain overly vertical, distorted and partial visions of the Church, the priestly ministry, the role of the laity, ecclesial responsibilities, roles of governance and so forth.”
Three years have seen the Church make impressive strides towards this vision – though the last month has highlighted how much more needs to be done. And we need to keep all in perspective; take to heart the wise words of Cardinal-elect Timothy Radcliffe, who said, as we embarked on our analysis of the Final Document’s first draft: “Remember: we don’t have to do everything; we have only to take the next step.” I’m looking forward greatly to synodal conversations about just that; to asking ourselves, “What seems right to us as the next step for our local Church?”
Bishop Nicholas Hudson
Auxiliary Bishop, Diocese of Westminster
