Synodality

Sociologist Tricia C. Bruce has dedicated her career to trying to understand American Catholics’ attitudes and behavior. She will draw on that experience in her new role as a consultor to the General Secretariat of the Synod, which she expects to include listening to diverse voices and considering broad questions, she said.

The Vatican’s decision to allow varying implementations of its recent document on blessings for people in irregular and same-sex unions is part of a “great move toward decentralization” in the Catholic Church amid the ongoing Synod on Synodality, said Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego.

Some people came to the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican in October “with the hope that it would bring dramatic change to the life of the church,” Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe said in a talk in Indianapolis Dec. 6. “Other people hoped it would exactly change nothing.”

Bishop Robert E. Barron said he is in “frank disagreement” with a section of a report from the Synod on Synodality indicating that scientific advances could prompt “rethinking” of the church’s teaching on sexual morality.