Allentown Diocese carrying out pope’s call for feedback
Church examining how it leads the flock
As the world’s Catholic bishops prepare to meet in Rome a year from now to discuss how the church makes decisions, Pope Francis wants to hear what matters most to the 1.3 billion members of the flock — a process the Vatican calls “the consultation of the people of God.”
So, Sunday, the Diocese of Allentown launched six months of “listening sessions” and personal meetings across its five counties, seeking to hear not only from engaged parishioners but from fallen-away and marginalized Catholics.
The feedback will be summarized and sent to Rome for the October 2023 assembly of the Synod of Bishops. After that, the worldwide church will institute whatever recommendations are accepted by the pope, who, broadly speaking, wants to strengthen the role of local churches and the laity in church governance.
The Allentown Diocese serves about 252,000 Catholics in Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton and Schuylkill counties.
“The Holy Father wants to know how Catholics experience and express their faith in these challenging times,” Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert said in a statement Thursday. “The goal is to listen to all Catholics so we may discern the best ways of addressing the challenges we face as a world and walk together on a path of healing and unity through our Catholic faith.”
Francis convened the two-year synod process — a “synod on synodality” — on Oct. 10. The word synod comes from a Greek term meaning “traveling together” and traditionally referred to meetings of bishops, and sometimes laity, where decisions and recommendations were made on issues.
So a synod on synodality means an examination of how decisions are made, and who has a say in making them.
“I’d say that synodality is a mindset or approach to operational, organizational functioning,” said the Rev. Thomas Dailey, the John Cardinal Foley chair of homiletics and social communications at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. “It’s not so much about structures as about listening, not so much about policies and procedures but about perspectives, shared as broadly as possible.”
In the case of the Church, Dailey added, “that mindset [and] approach is led by the Holy Spirit, so being ‘synodal’ is engaging people widely in the process of coming to understand where the Spirit is leading the Church. So, a synod on synodality is an attempt to do the very thing on which the gathering is focused. It’s a worldwide listening session on the subject of listening and being a global church.”
Several hundred parishioners, high school and college students, and representatives of ministries throughout the diocese will hold listening sessions and engage in personal outreach. Catholics also may provide comments and feedback in an online survey that will be released soon, the diocese said.
“The synod process should not be seen as a way to change established Church doctrine,” the diocese said in an earlier statement announcing the appointment of “ambassadors” to lead the feedback process. “Rather, it is a way for individuals to express positive and negative observations on aspects of the Church, and a way to help influence how the Church ministers to people in the diocese and around the world.”