Recollecting the Journey

New Diocesan Guidelines for Sharing the Synodal Experience

“We . . . learn synodality by practicing it; we learn together to grow in communion.” Pope Leo XIV gave this advice in his opening address to the cardinals gathered for the extraordinary consistory in Rome this past June. At the consistory, the cardinals themselves, the pope explained, would adopt the “conversations in the Spirit” method of dialogue used at the two sessions of the Synod on Synodality in 2023 and 2024. The pope continued, “I am convinced that the Lord is teaching us a more evangelical way of living out together the responsibility he has entrusted to us.”

If this is true of the cardinals, then it is all the more necessary for this “more evangelical way of living” to be nurtured at the local level. On Monday, the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod published new guidelines, titled Recollecting: Accompanying the Preparation of the Local Church’s Evaluation Assembly, for local dioceses and eparchies to reflect on and report how the recommendations of the Synod on Synodality are being implemented. The publication of the document comes just over a year after the Secretariat published guidelines for implementing the recommendations in the Synod’s final document, guidelines I discussed here. Recollecting offers guidance for how dioceses can conduct a “progress report” on this implementation.

The new document makes clear that the process it outlines should not be interpreted as a set of strict requirements for dioceses and eparchies, but rather as guidance that these communities can use to develop a process appropriate to their own context and needs. That being said, the guidelines do suggest that certain elements of the process are essential, namely the holding of the Assembly of the faithful mentioned in the document’s title and the production of two documents, a narrative of how synodality is being deepened in the diocese or eparchy and a letter from the community to the broader Church.

As is the case in the implementation phase, which began in June of last year and continues through December of this year, the local bishop plays a central role in what the document calls the “recollecting stage” of the synodal process. The bishop is responsible for calling together those who will be involved in the process more directly and remaining in dialogue with them throughout the process. He will also preside over the evaluation Assembly that is the culmination of the local process of recollecting. (“Evaluation” is not a great choice of words for what the document means here; I don’t know why they don’t just consistently use “recollecting” and “recollection,” which better capture the intent, throughout.)

The most active participants in this first step in the process of recollecting, however, are the members of the diocesan Synodal Team, who should have been appointed by the bishop during the implementation stage (or may have been constituted as early as 2021 to lead the local synodal process which led up to the Synod on Synodality in Rome two years later). At this stage, the Synodal Team is responsible for drafting a narrative report that captures how synodality has been deepened in the diocese or eparchy. Although the focus is especially on how the recommendations found in the Synod’s final document are being implemented, Recollecting makes clear that the narrative can reach back to the beginning of the synodal journey initiated by Pope Francis in 2021.

Recollecting recommends that the narrative focus on three areas in particular:

• The conversion of relationships invites us to consider how ways of listening to one another, collaborating, valuing charisms and ministries, and living fraternity and co responsibility are changing.

• The conversion of ecclesial processes invites us to observe how the ways in which the community discerns, makes decisions, exercises responsibility, fosters a culture of transparency, accountability and evaluation, provides formation, and organizes its life are changing.

• The conversion of bonds helps us to recognize how the horizons of communion are expanding: in relationships with other local Churches, with other Churches and Christian communities, with believers of other religions, with institutions and organizations within the local context, and in assuming responsibility for the common good. (p. 8)

It would have been helpful if Recollecting had referred back to the eleven implementation areas mentioned in Pathways, which offer some more concrete areas of focus. Significantly, the guidelines recommend that the Synodal Team should not only focus on how the local Church is being transformed, but also on the obstacles and challenges to deepening synodality.

In drafting the report, the Synodal Team should consult with the bishop, as well as the Diocesan or Eparchial Presbyteral Council and Pastoral Council. But they should also consult widely among the faithful, including parishes, communities of religious men and women, representatives of Catholic organizations and institutions, etc. They should also take care that the voices of young people and those on the margins are included.

After these consultations, the Synodal Team should not immediately turn to drafting the narrative report, but rather undertake a process of prayerful reflection to discern what the guidelines call the “signs” that have emerged from the process of recollecting, those key themes that emerge as most significant. The guidelines then give surprisingly specific recommendations on the composition of the narrative report, suggesting that it should be six to eight pages (presumably single-spaced) or 3,000-4,000 words, and should include a brief introduction outlining the methodology followed, the body of the narrative, and a brief conclusion “summarizing the profile of the missionary synodal Church that is emerging, together with the principal challenges or questions that remain open” (p. 9).

In the second stage of the local recollecting process, the local bishop will convoke an evaluation Assembly of the faithful. The desired composition of this assembly was outlined in a previous document published this May. The participants should include priests, deacons, religious men and women, and lay people, including those who belong to various lay associations and movements, but also those with no such affiliation. There should be a rough balance between men and women, as well as among the generations, and the participants should reflect the cultural diversity of the diocese or eparchy. It’s important that many of the participants should not be viewed as affiliated with the institutional church, and some should represent marginalized populations. Representatives of other Christian denominations and non-Christian religions can also be invited to participate, as appropriate.

The Assembly should take place over one to two full days, although the two days do not have to be consecutive. The primary task of the Assembly is to prayerfully read over and discuss the narrative report written by the Synodal Team, using the conversations in the Spirit method. The Assembly participants can propose revisions to the report and should also identify fruits from their conversations that can be brought back to their different communities. Finally, the evaluation Assembly should draft a short—approximately two pages or 1,000 words—letter to the other Churches. This letter should include a brief overview of the context of the local Church, a summary of what has been learned through the synodal journey, and a description of plans for the future. Both the final version of the narrative report and the letter to other Churches will then be sent to the national episcopal conference for the next stage in the recollecting process.

(Photo: Jon Tyson, Unsplash)

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I am a terrible dancer. At various times over the course of my life, people have attempted to walk me through the steps of this or that type of dance, but my kinesthetic intelligence finds each step so complicated that my instructor has already moved on to the next step while I’m still trying to figure out the previous one. I’m left lost and frustrated.

Reading through Recollecting, I can’t help but wonder if the ongoing process of deepening synodality in the Church might, metaphorically speaking, end with the same hopeless tangle of limbs. Are dioceses being asked to write these reports when most Catholic parishes have barely started wrapping their heads around what synodality is? Is a year and a half long enough for local dioceses to have meaningfully implemented the recommendations of the Synod on Synodality? Is the General Secretariat of the Synod rushing through the process (whose general outlines were first unveiled back in 2021) to get to the end result, without adequate attention to whether local Churches are actually learning the “steps” of this dance?

In my commentary on the earlier document Pathways, I noted that one challenge of implementation is the dependence of the process on the bishop and local pastors being on board with the notions of synodality and synodal leadership. Whether a diocese has a comprehensive plan for implementing the Synod’s recommendations will largely depend on the willingness of the bishop to develop such a plan. Similarly, the process of recollection will not bear much fruit if little effort has been put into implementation.

Even when a bishop is fully on board with deepening synodality, however, organizational transformation takes time. The faithful need to be educated about synodality, consultations need to take place, and plans need to be drawn up. And these efforts need to be balanced with the ongoing concerns of parish and diocesan life. The General Secretariat’s guiding documents seem to gloss over these constraints.

For example, in my own diocese, our bishop has embraced the synodal process and in 2024 began an “envisioning process” for the diocese focusing on promoting evangelization and leadership formation, goals closely connected with deepening synodality. Even so, the planning stage for evangelization is only wrapping up this summer, and the planning stage for leadership formation will continue through the end of this year. The implementation of both plans will continue into 2027 and beyond. And in the meantime, our diocese has been undergoing an extensive process of parish restructuring, although this process has been smartly linked to the other pastoral goals, explaining the necessary process of consolidation in terms of strengthening mission and community. This level of planning probably puts us ahead of the curve among other US dioceses, but how much will have been implemented in time to be included in the narrative report “due” by the middle of 2027?

But perhaps I am coming at this with the wrong attitude. Only a week ago I wrote about how Pope Leo, in a recent Sunday Angelus address, warned that we “expect God to do something spectacular,” when in reality the Kingdom “comes like the smallest of seeds,” requiring patience and attention to small things. Perhaps this process of recollecting is a time to look at the small things that are growing in our midst that may not be worthy of a feature article in America but that are slowly transforming the Church.

If you have thoughts on the implementation of synodality in your own diocese or in general, please leave a comment!

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Of Interest…

• I am late in calling attention to this, but earlier this month, Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service wrote a fascinating article on how lawmakers in Washington, DC on both sides of the immigration debate interpret Jesus’ call in Matthew 25 to “welcome the stranger.” Jenkins also talked to biblical scholars and other experts to provide some context. Jenkins’s article is closely related to one I wrote back in February on two opposing statements on immigration by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and a group of Catholic Democrats, respectively, both of which appealed to theological arguments. I focused on the theological presuppositions of each statement, and Jenkins helpfully continues to explore the role of faith and theology in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill.

• Pope Leo is traveling to Peru this November. His visit will include a stop in Lima, the capital, and Chiclayo, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023. I wrote here about how the political and ecclesial context in Peru during Leo’s time there, which extended back to 1985, may have shaped him. Two current facts will undoubtedly shape Pope Leo’s upcoming visit to the country. For one, Keiko Fujimori recently won a hotly contested presidential election against socialist Roberto Sánchez, winning by less than 50,000 votes. Fujimori, a right-wing populist, is the daughter of Peru’s former authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori, who governed the country from 1990 to 2000, when he fled the country. Eduardo Campos Lima has a good overview of the implications of the election for Leo’s visit and the Church in Peru at Crux Now. Meanwhile, Lima’s archbishop, Cardinal Carlos Castillo, is 76 and therefore past the mandatory retirement age for bishops, and likely soon to be replaced by Pope Leo. Castillo was appointed archbishop by Pope Francis in 2019 and named a cardinal in 2024. As Edgar Beltrán explains at The Pillar, there is no obvious replacement for Castillo; Beltrán also explores some of the possible choices and what might recommend them to Pope Leo.

• Longtime readers of Window Light know that I can’t resist a story that involves the Church and cybersecurity or digital privacy, and Michelle La Rosa, also at The Pillar, has an interesting story about a Vatican-sponsored prayer app that has left users’ personal data exposed. The organization involved is the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, a Pontifical Society founded as the Apostleship of Prayer in 1844 by the Jesuits to encourage prayer among the faithful, especially devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the prayer intentions of the pope. The society was renamed in 2016. Today, the Network uses a prayer app, Click to Pray, to encourage the faithful to pray daily, and the app is used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world each day. In January, an anonymous “white hat” hacker named BobDaHacker discovered that the names and email addresses of the app’s users are exposed online. There is no evidence that the information has been accessed by malicious actors, and luckily the information is relatively harmless, but as of now the data is still exposed. La Rosa links this data breach to other Vatican-related cybersecurity incidents, particularly several involving taking down the Vatican’s web site, but in general the exposure of personal data is far more serious than web site vandalism, which is relatively easy to fix.