Becoming a Synodal Church means that authority must be shared between clergy and the people
The first week of the 2024 Synod has been completed with the participants taking time to plan how to go deeper into the themes, reappropriating those that needed to be adjusted, and generally guiding the work that lies ahead. The Fundamentals were the focus of the first days arranging linguistic tables and preparing for the second week which will begin with Part I of the working document, the Instrumentum Laboris, which focuses on Relationships.
Click here to see the Methodology laid out for the 2nd Session of the Synod.
Women’s Ordination Conference continue to raise the issue for Women’s Equality
Two days into the synod, it is clear why our message “Don’t kick the can; women can be priests” is more important than ever.
During the October 2 opening session of Pope Francis’ month-long Synod on Synodality—anticipated to take up important issues facing the church today—the Vatican preemptively and blatantly undermined their own process by dismissing the call for women deacons as not yet “mature” with “no room for a positive decision.”
The equivocation took place in written remarks from the Vatican’s head of doctrine, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, as he summarized the “working group” on ministry. He echoed other synod officials who have insisted women’s ordination is not on the agenda.
The Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) decries this hollow performance of “synodality,” as inconsistent with the synodal promise of inclusivity, and a betrayal to Catholics worldwide who believed they were engaging in a sincere process of renewal of church structures.
The Vatican would rather let women’s gifts rot on the vine than recognize their equality.
The Vatican continues to hide behind shadowy commissions, endless study, and misogynistic theology to maintain the patriarchal status quo.
That may be the Vatican’s status quo; but WOC believes in a church on the move and a God who came into the world in a place where there was “no room.” In the spirit of Jesus, we will continue to live the Gospel call to equality.
The equal dignity of baptism tells us WE CAN.
The example of Jesus, who sent women to proclaim the Resurrection, tells us WE CAN.
The movement of the Holy Spirit tells us WE CAN.
So now it’s time for the hierarchy to realize that YES, they VATI-CAN.
Catholic Network for Women’s Equality, Canada (CNWE) Calls Vatican Assembly to Recognize Women’s Equality in Ministry and Governance as Integral to a Synodal Church
by Susan Roll and Rosemary Ganley, Oct. 3, 2024
Catholic Network for Women’s Equality, Canada (CNWE) Calls Vatican Assembly to Recognize Women’s Equality in Ministry and Governance as Integral to a Synodal Church CNWE members engage the Synodal process in Canada and Rome.
As the second of two Synodal Assemblies gets underway this month at the Vatican, CNWE returns to Rome to join in prayer and action for women’s equality in the Catholic Church, together with reform movements from around the world. CNWE members in Rome, Dr. Susan Roll, Joanne Jasper, Doug McDougall and Dr. Rosemary Ganley, C.M, join the groundswell of Catholics who are working to create an inclusive, creative, collaborative Church for the future.
Concrete structural changes needed now to move the Church toward synodality.
A hopeful and historic change to Catholic Synods has been the participation of lay delegates (including women), and a roundtable, prayerful methodology of ‘Conversations in the Spirit’. However, it is demoralizing that Synod organizers have decided to refer discussions on 10 major themes, including women in all ministries, to study groups that will report back to the Pope in June 2025. In response to this decision, CNWE joined members of Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) on the opening day of the Synod, in a street action that called delegates to stop ‘kicking the can down the road’. Until the Synod addresses how women (and other groups marginalized by the hierarchy) become co-responsible, equal partners in every aspect of Church life, ‘synodality’ is merely an abstract idea.
“How can we become a synodal Church in Mission?”
CNWE’s response to this central question is that the Synod should vote to dismantle the sexism and clericalism that continue to permeate Church law, teaching and practice and has allowed misogyny to flourish in the Church for so long. As CNWE member, Louise Dowhan says, “Women are not a ‘hot button issue’, or objects of further study. We are persons, made in the image of God, baptized in Christ, equal in dignity, and equally called by God to ministry and governance in our Church.”
We call Synod delegates to a bold revisioning of a Church that welcomes all. It is our hope that Synod delegates will be emboldened by the Gospel to advocate for women’s equality and gender equity so that a path toward credible synodality can be initiated at this Synod with the urgency it requires. Guided by the Holy Spirit, may it be so.