Listening sessions in Archdiocese of Baltimore create ‘honest conversations’

Listening sessions between November 2021 and May 2022, which the Archdiocese of Baltimore said resulted in 235 reports “containing the fruits of many prayerful, thoughtful and honest conversations” have been compiled into a 10-page synthesis report, which was published online.

The synod listening sessions were held throughout the archdiocese in response to Pope Francis’ call to Catholics throughout the world to participate in the early part of the process that will culminate in the World Synod of Bishops in October 2023.

Diocesan reports – limited to 10 pages – in the United States were sent in June to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for distillation into a national report, which was to be sent to the Vatican by mid-August. Bishop’s conferences in other areas of the world were to do the same.

The pope’s intention – as stated in the theme “For a Synodal Church – Communion, Participation, Mission” – was to get members of the church listening to each other and the Holy Spirit.

Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said, “Among the most important things learned through the synodal process was synodality itself – how to come together prayerfully, to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking the truth of Christ in the heart of the church and thus enabling us to listen to one another with openness, respect and love.”

For Jenny Kraska, who co-chaired the synod process in the archdiocese, the best thing about it was “the opportunity to hear so many conversations from such a wide variety of people throughout the archdiocese.” She came to Maryland in 2019 as executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, having served previously in the same position for the Colorado Catholic Conference.

“I’m somewhat new to the archdiocese so it was a wonderful opportunity to hear from a wide gamut of people around the Archdiocese of Baltimore,” she said.

Kraska admitted the difficulty in distilling hundreds of hours from about 170 listening sessions and thousands of comments into a brief report, because the synod steering committee wanted to be considerate of the opinions everyone expressed.

“There were a lot of common themes that came through,” she said. “That made it easier to group the themes together because we heard a lot of the overarching themes that came through the sessions.”

The report includes a letter from Archbishop Lori, an introduction and then sections corresponding to the synod themes of Communion, Participation and Mission.

The report does not ignore tough issues and opinions. Under Communion, for example, the report notes that some people expressed concern because family members left the church or stay away because they feel judged. “Some synod conversations pointed to church teachings on sexuality and the moral life as barriers while other participants encouraged clearer teaching on faith and morals,” the report said.

Other sections under Communion cover Black Catholics, Hispanic Catholics and the LGBTQ+ community, addressing racism in the church, the challenge of welcoming the gifts of Latino Catholics into the broader church, and how to be a welcoming church while sharing greater clarity on church teaching.

In the Participation section, the report focused on the laity, especially women in ministry, as well as the shortage of clergy. Discussions included calls for allowing priests to marry, allowing married deacons to be ordained to the priesthood and expanding ministerial roles for consecrated men and women.

Kraska said nothing necessarily surprising or new came through in the sessions. “They reflected the concern and the love that people have for their church,” she said.

Archbishop Lori said, “It is not surprising that there is a variety of opinion in the church. Pope Francis made it clear that the synodal process is not about changing church teaching or advancing ideological agendas. Rather, it is a global process of listening to the Lord and to one another in the Holy Spirit.”

The report also notes the COVID-19 pandemic also affected participation, with people lamenting “that it separated people from their parish, their pastor, their fellow parishioners and, most notably, the Eucharist.”

Kraska said the process shows a continued need for dialogue, and it should “help the church listen better and especially at the local level to help the church to live out its mission to evangelize.”

The archbishop added, “The synodal report speaks to challenges and opportunities to the mission of evangelization in the archdiocese and will be helpful as that mission is pursued.”

When the Vatican receives the synthesized reports of diocesan meetings from bishops’ conferences around the world, the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops will draft by fall 2022 the “instrumentum laboris,” or working document, to guide continental or regional ecclesial assemblies that will take place by March 2023. Those assemblies will produce another set of documents that will help in the drafting of a second working document for the October 2023 synod.

Email Christopher Gunty at editor@CatholicReview.org

To read the synod report from the Archdiocese of Baltimore, visit: https://www.archbalt.org/synod/report/

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