Hearing the call from the Synod on Young People

XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (3-28 Oct 2018) could well be a significant event in the life of the Church – universal and Australian.

There is much that can be taken from both the process and the outcome of this Assembly. As a process it showed our Church’s growing maturity with the synodal process – the wide consultation beforehand, the expanded range of people as auditors and participants and the challenge that women, especially the major superiors of women’s Religious Institutes, need to be voting members.

The English translation of the final document of the Assembly is not yet available but news reports indicate that there has been agreement on: the need for laity to take a greater role in accompanying young people and supporting their discernment of vocation/mission; a call for greater women’s participation within the Church, a broader view of sexuality, condemnation of all forms of abuse and affirmation of synodality.

Ultimately, it will be the implementation of the conclusions of the Assembly that matters. In Australia, we could take several of the Assembly’s conclusions much further as we already have identified these as local needs and have a well-prepared and receptive people. This is particularly the case with providing positions for women in Church ministry, leadership and governance. The overwhelmingly strong support for same sex marriage in the 2017 vote would also indicate that the Church needs to engage in a period of listening to LGBTI Catholics and their families to better discern its theological and pastoral approaches. Obviously, the priorities in some parts of the world will be very different. We can never expect a meeting of the universal Church to speak with the same clarity and strength that we can with regard to issues pertinent to our context.

The Assembly also echoes the many calls of late that the Church reject clericalism. A move from clericalism requires a new way of seeing and being church. If we are truly to believe that Baptism, rather than ordination, is the foundation of Christian life then we need laity brave enough to step up and standout as role models and spokespersons. In years to come if we look back on the implementation of the Synod on Young People as a dud I suspect the failure will be more the inaction of laity than of Bishops and priests. This challenge is clearly present in America Magazine’s quote from the Assembly’s Final Document (No. 166):

We must be saints in order to invite young people to become saints. The young people have loudly asked for an authentic, luminous, transparent and joyful Church: only a Church of saints can live up to these demands! Many of them have left the Church because they have not found holiness there, but rather mediocrity, arrogance, division and corruption. Unfortunately, the world is more outraged by the abuse committed by some members of the Church rather than enlivened by the holiness of its members: for this reason the Church as a whole must make a decisive, immediate and radical change of perspective! Young people need saints to form other saints, thus showing that “holiness is the most beautiful face of the Church” (cf. “Rejoice and Be glad” No. 9). There is a language that every person, of every time, place and culture can understand, because it is immediate and luminous: it is the language of holiness.

Links to relevant news report provided by Cathnews:

FULL STORY

• Synod urges ‘rigorous measures’ on abuse but stops short of ‘zero tolerance’ (Crux)
• The Synod on Young People: What does the Final Document Say?(Vatican News)

RELATED COVERAGE

• Youth synod final report released, addresses gender, sexuality(Catholic Herald)
• Synod final document warns against ‘pre-packaged answers,’ urges ‘accompaniment’ and endorses women in church leadership (America Magazine)
• Synod document: Listen to, support, guide, include young people(CNS )
• Youth synod final report released, addresses gender, sexuality(Catholic Herald)
• Synod ends, calling women’s inclusion in Catholic leadership a ‘duty of justice’ (NCR Online)