The 2023 synod summit in the Vatican ended with a series of openings for reform, including on the role of women, training of priests and a re-think of the church’s sexual teaching. 

For those in the hall, a vast majority agreed that the synod process and style — which saw cardinals and lay people gathered around tables listening to each other — is how church business should be done in the future. 

But what happens next? Synod 2023 is the first of two assemblies, with another due in October 2024. 

In this episode, I talk again to Myriam Wijlens, who took part in the synod as an expert adviser. Professor Wijlens, a theologian and canon lawyer who has been closely involved in the synod process, stressed a general agreement that women need an enlarged role in the church but a “struggle” over how this should happen in practice. The question of women deacons is to be further studied, and Wijlens said a “conclusion” to the discussion over the possibility of women deacons could take place at the synod next year. 

Professor Wijlens teaches at the University of Erfurt in Germany. She said that the new synod process marks a “tremendous shift”, which gave everyone the same amount of time to speak, whether they were an Asian woman or a European cardinal. 

“There was a general agreement: we have to attend to this question [of women]”, she said. “And there was a great agreement that women do make up the larger portion of active participants in the life of the Church. And then there comes a struggle because we all come from different cultures and from different backgrounds. How does that unfold in real life, on the ground?”  

Professor Wijlens points out that a critical challenge is implementing synodality at the local level. But it can no longer be a question of waiting for the authorities in Rome about what to do. 

“How can Rome say what you have to do in the inner city of London and in the inner city of Manila or the countryside of Alaska at the same time,” she said. It is up to bishops and local leaders to “take up your own responsibility” and implement synodal reforms in their local areas. 

The Church’s Radical Reform podcast is sponsored by the Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham in partnership with The Tablet. 

Producer: Silvia Sacco

Editor: Jamie Weston 

The reflections of Fr Timothy Radcliffe have been one of the highlights of the October 2023 synod assembly in the Vatican. The English Dominican friar led the synod participants on a retreat before the synod gathering and offered wise reflections and spiritual guidance. Some have called him the “spiritual father” of the synod. 

In this episode, I sat down with Fr Timothy to discuss the synod process and how to navigate disagreement in an increasingly polarised world and church. Fr Timothy led the worldwide Dominican Order from 1992-2001, the first English friar to do so. He knows the universal Church and the workings of the Vatican and has attended several synods. 

“I think to see Roman Curial cardinals sitting with young women from Latin America and Asia and listening, really listening. I think that’s what is most transformative,” he told me.  

The process of listening, he says, is the “foundation for any subsequent things to happen” and that both individuals and the Church collectively need to be “changed” before they know which changes need to be made. On one occasion in the synod, he referred to a story that had been told to participants about a bisexual woman who had taken her own life as she did not feel welcomed by the Church.

“The question always put is: is the Church’s teaching going to change? That’s not the issue. The issue is, will we love and welcome our fellow human beings?” he says. “If we love them, and listen to them and make them part of our lives, if there are evolutions to happen, they will happen. But you don’t start by asking what changes have to be made.”

He stressed that the synod is counter-cultural because it demands people listen to those with whom they disagree.  

“We inherit a tradition, Catholicism, which does actually believe in reason,” he pointed out.

“We see a lot of irrationality in our society because people don’t believe in reason anymore, but the Church does, and this should act in a healthy way to open not just our hearts but our minds, so we listen attentively with all our intelligence to what the other person is saying, and try to see how even if we disagree it bears some tiny seed of truth that we need. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t turn out, when we look back, that one of the great roles of the Church will be to carry on believing in reason.” 

Talking about indifference or scepticism of the synod among the clergy, Fr Timothy said there needs to be a “positive, affirmative vision of the priesthood” to ensure more priests get on board with the synod process.  Finally, he talked about his recent health struggles and how Pope Francis took him by surprise and phoned him while he was in hospital. 

The Church’s Radical Reform podcast is sponsored by the Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham in partnership with The Tablet. 

Producer: Silvia Sacco 

Editor: Jamie Weston 

The October 2023 synod assembly in the Vatican is adopting a very different process to the one used by previous gatherings, which is demonstrated by the arrangement of round tables in the Pope Paul VI audience hall. 

The sight of bishops and cardinals seated around tables with lay delegates is deliberate and designed to foster what Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod co-ordinator, described as “genuine sharing and authentic discernment”. 

Significantly, the seating is not “hierarchical”, symbolising the vision of the Church as primarily the “People of God”, which is at the heart of the synod process.

So, how does it all work? Austen Ivereigh, the journalist and papal biographer, is one of the expert theologians working inside the hall and in this episode he talks about the nuts and bolts of the process. We spoke as the synod was getting underway. 

Previous synods, he explained, took place in a theatre-style assembly where some of the work was done in small groups of 10-12 people. The participants were primarily bishops, and they sat according to hierarchal rank. 

The “big shift”, Dr Ivereigh says, is that most of the work for this synod is being done in small groups in a method called “conversations in the spirit”, which he pointed out is not about having a small-group debate but instead listening and responding to points that are raised. 

Each group gathered around a table seeks to respond to questions raised by the working document for the synod with the end goal of producing a document that brings together all the reflections. The new process adopted by the Vatican synod assembly also reflects the methods adopted by local synod gatherings that have taken place during the process, which began in October 2021. 

Dr Ivereigh points out that everyone can speak within their small group and to the whole assembly; they can also submit written submissions on any given topic to the synod secretariat.

“The object of this whole exercise is synodality itself,” he says. “It’s a new way of proceeding, of operating, of thinking within the Church which centres on communion, participation and mission, that is to say the involvement of people in processes of discernment prior to decision taking in the Church.” 

While the synod is likely to raise major points of disagreement, Dr Ivereigh points out that the synod aims to find a way to “contain those tensions” rather than fall into “sterile polarisations” and to find harmony or “reconciled diversity” between people with different positions. 

The “synthesis document” produced by the October synod assembly, he said, will aim to “capture the result of these deliberations”, and then the whole Church will be asked to reflect on that text ahead of the October 2024 synod. 

“It [the synthesis document] may say, ‘these are the questions that need answering’, ‘these are the things that need further exploration’, ‘here there is great agreement, or here there is great disagreement’, it's literally capturing what’s happened,” Dr Ivereigh explains.  

He added that there will likely be “various commissions set up to study the proposals”, including “canonical commissions, theological commissions, pastoral commissions,” following the synod assembly's conclusion.

Dr Ivereigh said that while the synod assembly will be aware of opposition to the process, it was unlikely to affect the internal proceedings. 

The Church’s Radical Reform podcast is sponsored by the Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham in partnership with The Tablet. 

Producer: Silvia Sacco

Editor: Jamie Weston