Ten USF students traveled to Rome, Italy last month to study the closing of the Catholic Church’s “Synod on Synodality,” a gathering of delegates from around the world called by Pope Francis in 2021. The students attended as part of a class called “The Church of Pope Francis” offered by the Saint Ignatius Institute, a Living Learning Community. More than 100 American students and faculty from 13 other Catholic universities, a group called CENTERS (Catholic Education Network to Encounter Rome and the Synod) joined USF on the trip.
Synodality is defined by the Church as a continuous “modus vivendi et operandi,” meaning mode of living, in which all members of the Church walk through life together and participate in the mission of bringing the Gospel to the world.
In his first speech of the Synod, Pope Francis outlined three opportunities for growth. “First, that of moving not occasionally but structurally towards a synodal Church, an open square where all can feel at home and participate. The Synod then offers us the opportunity to become a listening Church, to break out of our routine and pause from our pastoral concerns in order to stop and listen […] Finally, it offers us the opportunity to become a Church of closeness. Let us keep going back to God’s own ‘style’ which is closeness, compassion and tender love.”
Traditionally in Church councils, only bishops were voting members, but Pope Francis invited 70 non-bishops to participate and vote, including priests and laypeople, two of whom were American college students.
Synod delegates gathered insights from their communities through a method of discernment called Conversations in the Spirit. Based on the belief that, through baptism, all Catholics have access to the Holy Spirit, these conversations are meant to bring out the truth that the Spirit reveals in each person through emotion.
Topics for the delegates and their communities incorporated LGBTQ+ inclusion, women’s ordination to be deacons, lay participation in Church responsibilities, polarization and interfaith dialogue. Delegates were instructed to pay particular attention to those on the margins of the Church. This synod aimed to bring healing and make the Church more conversational and participatory, not to bring immediate change to doctrine. By orders of Pope Francis, study groups on subjects such as female ordination to the diaconate and adding education on synodality to priestly formation, were formed to continue discernment going forward.
Students attended Pope Francis’ General Audience and heard him give a homily. At a lunch with all of the CENTERS students and a group of delegates, students learned from delegates and offered their own questions and insights. Each CENTERS university also sent two students to a dinner with Synod delegates and a lunch with female identifying delegates and students. Celeste Leon, sophomore advertising major, participated in a dinner with a delegate. Leon said, “[The delegate] was a wonderful representative of the Synod and he actually was writing down things I was saying which made me feel that I do have an impact and I do have a voice and people can hear that through him.”
On the final evening of the trip, the Vatican invited all CENTERS students to a discussion with a panel of Synod leaders: Secretary of the Synod Cardinal Mario Grech, Chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernardino Sister Leticia Salazar, Relator of the Synod Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas.
Sandra Safein, a junior psychology major, asked the panel, “what does faithfulness to tradition and truth look like in a process like synodality that places such emphasis on experience? Does arriving at different positions in the synodal process challenge fidelity to tradition or undermine truth?”
Bishop Flores responded, “We want to be a people who listen to people even if we’ve decided before we even start the conversation that they’re wrong,” he said. “I trust the Holy Spirit, I really do. I mean, the Church has been messy for 2,000 years, and the Holy Spirit still kind of manages to keep us together […] I do not lose any sleep that the faith of the Church will be compromised if we listen to each other. On the contrary, it will make us better sharers of the gospel in its integrity with the world and Jesus does the rest.”
Leon said, “Hearing what [Pope Francis] had to say in his General Assembly was truly just amazing […] it was just something I will never forget.” She continued, “The Synod is happening, and it’s really great to finally see that something’s happening and some things […] are being talked about for the future of the Catholic Church and it’s important to commit to that.”
“I am certain the Spirit will guide us and give us the grace to move forward together, to listen to one another and to embark on a discernment of the times in which we are living, in solidarity with the struggles and aspirations of all humanity,” said Pope Francis.
Camryn Hissen attended SII’s trip to Rome.
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