Last Wednesday, the Synod on Synodality — the first of two such meetings scheduled for this year and next — officially opened in Rome, after a long, three-year period of intense, worldwide consultation and preparation.
While it is to be hoped and trusted that the Holy Spirit is guiding this venture, it can be by no means taken for granted that this is the case. Otherwise, the Catholic Church, through its leaders, could be seen as no doubt speaking in good faith, but also in an arguably foolhardy manner, in the name of God — always a hazardous step to take.
Rather than being paralysed by apprehension or too much analysis, there is surely a prima facie case to be made for endorsing a collective think-in at this murky moment in Catholic Church affairs.
In the case of the Soviet Union, the motor for change was seemingly the perceived imminent economic collapse of the State
And yet it might still be worthwhile to step back just for a moment and reflect a little on what is about to unfold, from the perspective of a comparison with another world historical movement that occurred well within the living memory of most participants in the Synod.
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The comparison is with the process of perestroika in the former Soviet Union.
However far-fetched or even outrageous such a parallel might seem, it might still give some food for thought.
Perestroika referred in the final years of the 20th century to an undefined, though not universal, desire for change within the former Soviet Union. The then fairly widespread sense in Soviet society that something had to change if the whole system were not to implode and disintegrate is perhaps not entirely unlike the sense of malaise affecting the Catholic Church.
In the case of the Soviet Union, the motor for change was seemingly the perceived imminent economic collapse of the State. And the face behind the movement for change was that of recently deceased President Mikhail Gorbachev.
In the case of the Catholic Church, what seems to have been the driver of change has been a certain diminution in credibility in the entire ecclesial system — a problem that Pope Francis, with his drive for synodality seems determined to address.
As with the Soviet parallel, there are no doubt elements within the Catholic Church that refuse to endorse any gloomy diagnosis, however pervasive, of its present predicament. Many, in addition, might well argue that the synodal process has less to do with any current crisis of credibility than with a desire to pursue more robustly the initiatives outlined at the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) about involving the People of God in the church’s mission and governance.
Be that as it may, the denting of Catholicism’s credibility, in itself a centuries-old issue, has clearly been deepened by reactions inside and outside the church to revelations of sexual abuse within, in particular, its clerical ranks, and the indelicate tactics frequently adopted at the highest levels of the church hierarchy to conceal such scandals.
Yet, in seeking to understand the current sense of malaise, and even sometimes of disintegration, felt within parts of the Catholic world, it would be surely unwise to underestimate the possible significance of a still more diffuse and elusive sense of unease regarding the very purpose, or raison dêtre, of the church.
To return directly to perestroika, the process set in motion by Gorbachev certainly ushered in change, though maybe not of the kind he had foreseen or wished for
In this perspective, the process of synodality might even be seen as a smokescreen, however unintentional, distracting from potentially more intractable problems.
To return directly to perestroika, the process set in motion by Gorbachev certainly ushered in change, though maybe not of the kind he had foreseen or wished for. But the end result (so far, at least) has been the strengthening of the central power in the state in the hands of one person.
It is odd, in fact, that most revolutions, since at least the heady days of the French Revolution in 1789, have begun by ostensibly wanting the people to have their say, but have tended to end up by concentrating the power of the state increasingly in the hands of one individual.
In the former Soviet Union, when the dust of perestroika had finally settled, the figure of a newly minted modern czar came more sharply into focus. And there, for the time being, matters rest, though probably still simmering below the surface.
Whatever the advocates of synodality had in mind when they embarked on their journey, and despite their best intentions, this might be what the process delivers. For man proposes, but God disposes
Perestroika may have finally failed, of course, not primarily for internal reasons, but because of the West’s unhelpful reaction to the Soviet Union’s problems at the time. It would thus doubtless be foolish to use the fate of this concept as an infallible guide to that of synodality.
That said, if purely historical trends are any clue to the movement of church history, this latest attempt to set the Barque of St Peter on a different course towards a brave new Catholic world could well end up with the hands of the fisherman more firmly wrapped round the tiller than in the past, and with the centralisation of ecclesial power more firmly vested in the papacy than ever before.
Whatever the advocates of synodality had in mind when they embarked on their journey, and despite their best intentions, this might be what the process delivers. For man proposes, but God disposes.
The law of unintended consequences may finally produce an outcome to the process of synodality that might compound the problems of the Catholic Church rather than mitigating them. The synodal process could even turn out to be a modern Tower of Babel, generating confusion and frustration rather than clarity and harmony. As against that, the Synod might well prove to be the harbinger of a new dawn for Christianity. Time will tell.
- Fr Martin Henry is a former lecturer in theology at St Patricks College, Maynooth and a priest of Down & Connor diocese