• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Nathan Knutson, the Louise Francesco Chair in Sacred Music at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., speaks during a seminary panel on the synod on synodality Aug. 29, 2023. Also pictured are Father Patrick Brady, the seminary's vice rector and the event's moderator; Oblate Father Thomas Dailey, the seminary's John Cardinal Foley Chair of Homiletics and Social Communications; and John Haas, the seminary's John Cardinal Krol Chair in Moral Theology. (OSV News photo/Sarah Webb, courtesy St. Charles Borromeo Seminary)

Speakers’ remarks on synod reflect tensions, hopes for renewed missionary spirit in church

September 9, 2023
By Matthew Gambino
OSV News
Filed Under: Feature, News, Synodality, World News

WYNNEWOOD, Pa. (OSV News) — From its beginning in 2021, the church’s synod on synodality has raised a question: Where is this worldwide process of listening to the people of God, especially those on the margins, going?

Panelists at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, just outside Philadelphia, probed the question the evening of Aug. 29 in the Cardinal’s Forum with the theme, “Synodality … a style, a mentality, a spirituality, a pastoral model.”

Three panelists represented the endowed chairs of the seminary in areas including moral theology, social communications and sacred music. Each brought perspectives that mirrored tensions and hopes for a renewed missionary spirit in the church that the synod process has revealed.

Their five-minute talks, followed by a question-and-answer session with seminarians in attendance, reflected themes revealed in the comments expressed by people participating in the synod’s listening sessions in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and across North America. Staring in October 2021, these sessions were held in diocesan, national and continental assemblies.

Pope Francis will be joined by bishops, clergy and laypeople Oct. 4-29 in Rome at the world Synod of Bishops to discuss the findings of the worldwide consultations, which formed the basis of the synod’s working document — or “Instrumentum Laboris” as it’s called in Latin — released in June by the Vatican. A second session for the synod will take place in 2024.

John Haas, the seminary’s Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology, began his remarks with a blistering critique of the global synod’s working document. Referring to the document as “tendentious, tedious and painfully vague,” he said it uses a circular argument to define the synod as synodality.

Haas noted that the working document says the “synodal church is a listening church,” but he said he found the reference “to be most troubling. I cannot help wondering to whom is the church listening, and to what end, and what is being said?”

The document pointed out that the church traditionally has assisted people in need, such as refugees or victims of disaster, through its charitable agencies. But the document, he said, “makes an unfortunate shift” from a call to assist those in need to “a call to embrace even those who may have excluded themselves by their own actions.”

The document lists those to be included as remarried divorcees, those in polygamous marriages and LGBTQ+ people.

Haas said he was “dismayed” to read in a church document the acronym referring to people identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer and “whatever other sexual aberration individuals might seek to engage in.”

He called for a reliance on divine revelation in order to interpret the reflections gathered in the synod process and to deal with issues such as the exclusion of persons, clericalism and ambiguity in teaching.

Haas also bemoaned the lack of a stated end or goal for the synod. “The end makes any act possible,” he said. “What is the end of the listening and the journeying?”

Oblate Father Thomas Dailey, who holds the seminary’s Cardinal Foley Chair of Homiletics and Social Communications, in his talk and in answer to questions following, suggested there may be no end goal of the synod. The voyage itself, not its destination, may be the will of God for the church at this time.

Father Dailey proposed the image of the barque of Peter, a 14th-century artwork that depicts the Christian Church as a large boat with St. Peter at the helm, its deck crowded with disciples from every walk of life, rowing together on their earthly journey toward Christ, impelled by the power of the wind, symbolizing the Holy Spirit.

The church “requires that we be on board, that we learn to talk with and listen to each other,” the priest said, “so that we can navigate together according to God’s way and reach our final destination without capsizing. It may be a challenge, but we cannot willingly let anyone fall overboard.”

A diversity of voices has emerged in the church through participation in the synod, but the call to unity remains an ever-present though difficult reality, Father Dailey suggested.

He referred to his religious order’s 17th-century founder, St. Francis de Sales, in explaining the tension between diversity of peoples and their unity.

“(In the) divine providence, it is not our differences that define us, but our unity as believers and disciples,” Father Dailey said.

The lesson from St. Francis is that in “unidiversity” — which the saint described as uniqueness along with diversity, diversity along with unity — “lies spiritual beauty,” Father Dailey said.

Because beauty matters, “our challenge and task is to see it and seek it, work together as we row toward it, and learn to appreciate and embrace it, so that we can communicate God’s beauty in our own lives and in our vocations in a synodal church,” he said.

Nathan Knutson, the Louise Francesco Chair in Sacred Music, picked up the theme of beauty since he is a specialist in sacred art in the liturgy of the church. He emphasized the missionary thrust of the synod and broadly of the church today.

Principles — meaning church teaching and liturgical practices that have stood the test of time — must be placed ahead of passing cultural preferences if the church is to pass on the faith to succeeding generations.

“Pope Francis has called us to do as missionary disciples of Christ: to look at the church from other viewpoints, to learn, but then to act in truth and to open our hearts toward a heavenly vision rather than simply a worldly one,” Knutson said.

Read More Synodality

Inside, outside: Synod to focus on the church and its role in the world

Pope names two Chinese bishops to synod; Vatican publishes synod schedule

Synod office announces plan to reduce assembly’s carbon footprint

Reasons why St. Francis is a model of synodality

Bishop Flores: Synod aims to make church more effective in advancing Christ’s Gospel

Synod and family, the communication skills are the same

Copyright © 2023 OSV News

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Matthew Gambino

Matthew Gambino writes for CatholicPhilly.com, the online news outlet of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Three more pro-life activists convicted on federal charges for blockade at abortion clinic
  • Cardinal Dolan: Are Sunday Masses just too long?
  • St. Maria Goretti High School faces uncertain future after difficult decision by archdiocese
  • Archbishop Lori announces appointments, including three associate pastors
  • Bishop Strickland will not resign, but says he will respect Pope Francis’ authority if removed

| Latest Local News |

Radio Interview: Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage

St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore awarded $2 million VA grant

‘The Following of Christ’: The ‘hidden’ book that helped make Mother Seton a saint

| Latest World News |

U.S. Border Patrol records sharp increase in arrests; situation of migrants in Mexico deteriorates

English police apologize to woman arrested for silently praying outside abortion facility

Papal commission incorporates global feedback in safeguarding guidelines

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Question Corner: Does insufficient faith keep us from being healed?
  • U.S. Border Patrol records sharp increase in arrests; situation of migrants in Mexico deteriorates
  • English police apologize to woman arrested for silently praying outside abortion facility
  • Papal commission incorporates global feedback in safeguarding guidelines
  • U.S. bishops, advocacy groups caution against government shutdown
  • Para compensar todos los reclamos de abuso: la Arquidiócesis considera reorganización
  • Radio Interview: Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage
  • God has the same love for all, pope says at Angelus
  • Take leap of faith and dare to love your family, those in need, pope says

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED