The Formation of the Faithful in the Synod's Final Document

Making Disciples of All Nations

I finally had a chance this week to sit down and read the final document from October’s second session of the Synod on Synodality, over a month since its initial publication. Although the original document was only published in Italian on October 26, at the end of the Synod gathering, an official English translation was not released until November 15. Holiday travel and other matters then kept me from getting to it.

The document is divided into five parts:

• Part I focuses on explaining synodality as a way of thinking about the Church, linking it in particular to the image of the Church as the People of God;

• Part II describes the need for different roles and ministries within the Church, including ordained ministries, and the need to understand these roles in a relational way;

• Part III centers on how the Church can develop more synodal decision-making processes at the local and universal level and what it means to hold Church leaders accountable;

• Part IV explores the theme of the inculturation of the Gospel in light of both globalization (especially the spread of religious and cultural diasporas) and the growing digital sphere, while also discussing the relationship between local Churches and the universal Church;

• Part V is a short section focusing on the formation of members of the Church to become missionary disciples.

After digesting the document, I realized that different readers might come away from it with quite different reactions. As for me, I noted that much of the content of the final document is drawn from the synthesis report written at the end of last year’s first gathering of the Synod. A side-by-side comparison of the two documents would probably be enlightening (although not something I plan on doing!). The document also reflects the contents of the theological presentations given at the four public fora held during this year’s Synod, which I covered here and here. And, although we don’t know the details regarding the table conversations during the Synod gathering, participants did provide daily briefings summarizing those conversations, and the final document by and large reflects those reports. In other words, for a reader who has been immersed in the synodal process, the final document provides a comprehensive synthesis of the Synod’s work and a blueprint for the Church moving forward, but little that is particularly new or surprising.

For a reader, however, who was perhaps aware that the Synod was taking place but had not been closely following it, and who decided to take up the final document to see what the Synod had been about, I think the document might offer some surprises and some recommendations that, if implemented, promise to spark significant changes in the life of the Church. Whether the reader finds those changes refreshing or threatening, I suppose, depends on their prior commitments.

Before this year’s session started, I suggested that the removal of certain “hot button” issues, like the Church’s inclusion of LGBTQ persons and the ordination of women as deacons, from the Synod’s agenda may have meant there was less media focus on the gathering compared to last year, but it didn’t mean that the assembly’s deliberations were inconsequential or insignificant. A reader who had not been following the Synod closely would discover, for example, that the Synod had considered:

• A renewed ecclesiology of the People of God, focusing on how all the baptized share in the mission of the Church;

• Building on the previous point, the need for the lay faithful to become more involved in both the Church’s formal ministries and other ways of engaging in mission to the world;

• The need for consultative decision-making processes at all levels of the Church in which all the faithful have a voice;

• The importance of developing processes for transparency regarding decision-making in the Church, finances, and pastoral planning, and strengthening mechanisms for accountability in cases of abuse, financial scandal, and other failures of leadership;

• Rethinking the role of the pope as head of the universal Church and the relationship between local Churches and the universal Church, and also creating new structures that cross traditional boundaries, like the recently created Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon Region;

• Revamping sacramental preparation, particularly for the sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist) as well as adult faith formation, the formation of priests, and the formation of other ministers in the Church.

Although naturally unified by the theme of synodality, the final document covers a lot of ground, making it impossible to summarize in a single article. Instead, here I want to focus on that last bullet point, on what the final document has to say about faith formation, as a helpful window into the final document’s broader vision.

Last year, before the first session of the Synod had begun, I predicted that “one of the fruits of the Synod will be some kind of concerted effort to improve leadership formation in the Church, perhaps analogous to the effort to promote seminary education for priests in the aftermath of the Council of Trent.” Although this theme didn’t have quite the centrality I thought it would, I still think it is likely that we will see important efforts to provide better formation for bishops, priests, and lay ministers in the next few years stemming from the Synod conversations. As this year’s Synod meeting ended, in response to critics who argued that the synodal process had not given adequate attention to evangelization, I countered that a central focus of the Synod’s discussions was “making disciples.” This focus shows up throughout the final document, including in the attention it gives to the formation of baptized Christians as missionary disciples fulfilling distinct vocations in service to the Church’s mission.

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Through baptism, we are “incorporated into the People of God” (17), but this can’t be reduced to membership in an organization or institution. Baptism makes us children of God, unites us with Christ, and provides us the grace that “enables us to walk together as brothers and sisters” (21). Our identity as members of the People of God, in virtue of our baptism, is “lived out as a call to holiness and a sending out in mission” (15). All distinct vocations and ministries are manifestations of this baptismal identity, the latter shared equally by all the faithful. All the baptized likewise share in the sensus fidei, the “instinct for the truth of the Gospel” (22); this is what gives all the faithful the right to participate in the discernment and decision-making of the Church, even if pastors and others with distinct ministerial roles have a more specified authority.

Christians who are baptized as adults receive formation from catechists and pastors as part of their initiation into the Church. For the majority who are baptized as infants, baptism begins a process of formation starting with one’s parents, family members, and godparents, and later including catechists and other educators, pastors, and other ministers in the Church (142). The final document recommends that all the faithful need to be formed in a better understanding of the sacrament of baptism as a source of gifts for those taking up the mission of the Church so that they can, in turn, educate and encourage the baptized in living out that mission (141).

The document also situates the sacrament of confirmation, the second sacrament of initiation, into the overarching theme of mission. The sacrament of confirmation “enriches the lives of believers with a special outpouring of the Spirit so that they become witnesses to faith” (25). Although Latin Rite Catholics typically receive confirmation as teenagers, members of the Eastern Catholic Churches typically receive the sacrament alongside baptism. The final document’s paragraph on confirmation is careful not to exclude either practice, although it’s clear that the fruits of confirmation fully emerge only as the recipient progresses into adulthood:

[Confirmation] renews in us the miracle of a Church stirred up by the fire of mission, with the courage to go out onto the streets of the world with the ability to be understood by all peoples and cultures. All believers are called to contribute to this impetus, accepting the charisms that the Spirit distributes abundantly to each one and committing themselves to place these at the service of the Reign of God with humility and creative resourcefulness. (25)

Finally, the document insists that the Eucharist, which Vatican II had described as “the source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen Gentium 11), provides a type of formation:

[T]he Church, the Body of Christ, learns from the Eucharist how to combine unity and plurality: the unity of the Church and the multiplicity of Eucharistic assemblies; unity of the sacramental mystery and variety of liturgical traditions; unity of celebration and plurality of vocations, charisms and ministries. The Eucharist, above all else, demonstrates that the harmony created by the Spirit is not uniformity and that every ecclesial gift is destined for the common good of all. (26)

The Eucharist embodies in microcosm the way that the People of God carries out its mission, as a harmony of distinct vocations and charisms:

In the “full, conscious and active” participation of all the faithful, in the presence of different ministries and in the presidency of the Bishop or Priest, the Christian community is made visible, whereby a differentiated co-responsibility of all for mission is fulfilled. (26)

The sacraments of initiation, then, provide both grace and formation in living out the Church’s mission, and the final document calls for better catechesis to further develop this understanding of the sacraments among the faithful and to encourage all the faithful to live out their baptismal vocations in collaboration with one another.

(Photo: Walter Gadea, Unsplash)

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Early on in the synodal process, at the national and continental levels, clericalism was often mentioned as an obstacle to a more synodal Church, and in particular to the greater participation of the laity in the mission of the Church. In the documents produced during these stages of the synodal process, clericalism was often identified with an authoritarian leadership style on the part of pastors, excessive deference to the clergy, and an expectation that the clergy bear the primary, or even sole, responsibility for carrying out the mission of the Church (and thus clericalism is often paired with apathy on the part of the laity).

Perhaps surprisingly, clericalism only briefly comes up in the final document, mentioned in only two paragraphs. Perhaps the best explanation for this shift is that while participants at the national and continental levels were asked to consider the obstacles to synodality, among other things, the final document is much more exclusively focused on proposals and recommendations for making the Church more synodal. Also, during the first session of the Synod last year, it became clear that pastors and other members of the clergy would be crucial for implementing more synodal ways of living out the Church’s mission, but also, unfortunately, parish priests were underrepresented among the Synod’s participants. This resulted in the convocation of a synodal gathering of parish priests in Rome earlier this year, but perhaps also led to a diminished focus on the problem of clericalism to avoid portraying priests as the enemy or as an obstacle to synodality.

When the document does mention clericalism, it defines it as using a position of authority for personal advantage rather than in service to the People of God (74) or a lack of accountability for those in positions of authority (98). Throughout this year’s synodal gathering, a contrast was drawn between seeing a particular position of authority or ministry as a source of privilege or as a service to others.

In earlier stages of the synodal process, it was often proposed that clericalism could only be overcome by forming seminarians in a more synodal leadership style. The final document broadens this recommendation, proposing that the formation of all ministers, whether ordained or lay, should instill a collaborative mentality. Such a mentality would include recognizing that the vocations and ministries of all the faithful involve an exchange of gifts (rather than a sharp distinction between givers and recipients) and that these vocations should be seen “in the perspective of a service to be performed” (147).

Perhaps more innovatively, the document also calls for what it describes as “shared formation”:

. . . in which men and women, laity, consecrated persons, ordained ministers and candidates for ordained ministry participate together, thus enabling them to grow together in knowledge and mutual esteem and in the ability to collaborate. (143)

In the United States, we already have the example of graduate programs in theology or pastoral studies in which members of religious orders study alongside lay women and men who work as ministers or who are pursuing a career in theology. But the final document seems to be proposing something broader. For one, it proposes that the formation of candidates for ordained ministry should include “a significant presence of women” (in what capacities is unclear) and should likewise involve “immersion in the daily life of communities” (148).

But let’s take a step back. If every baptized Christian is called to participate in the Church’s mission, then faith formation must be an ongoing process that doesn’t end with the sacraments of initiation. This notion of “adult faith formation” or “adult catechesis” is well established in many parts of the world, including the United States, but the final document proposes some ways in which it could be enhanced. For example, it suggests that this formation should be “integral,” or comprehensive:

Such formation must aim not only at acquiring theoretical knowledge but also at promoting the capacity for openness and encounter, sharing and collaboration, reflection and discernment in common. Formation must consequently engage all the dimensions of the human person (intellectual, affective, relational and spiritual) and include concrete experiences that are appropriately accompanied. (143)

In other words, faith formation should not only be a matter of learning about the faith, but also of sharing the faith and experiencing spiritual growth through building relationships with other participants. Of course, may people do have these experiences of faith formation through, for example, small faith communities, but this experience is not universal. The document’s proposal that faith formation should involve an experiential component—perhaps through service or pilgrimages to holy sites—is also certainly something that has been tried, but the document provide good reasons why parishes and dioceses should strive to expand these efforts.

What I want to focus on, however, is what these examples of adult faith formation would look like if they embodied the “shared formation” also proposed by the final document. I think that often Catholics make the implicit assumption that priests, and to a lesser extent lay ministers, who provide faith formation to others are themselves “fully formed,” that is, not in need of faith formation, or at least that they don’t share the same spiritual needs as those they serve. But what would it look like if a pastor took part in a parish Bible study or faith sharing community, not as its leader, but as a participant? What if parish priests, or religious brothers and sisters, shared their concerns with finding time for the spiritual life in the midst of daily activities, or the spiritual struggles of a family member’s failing health, alongside lay parishioners? I know examples of this kind of “shared formation” exist, but it is certainly not the norm.

Although the final document does take a broad approach to formation, it does make specific recommendations regarding the formation of clergy. Besides the recommendations I already mentioned, it calls for the revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, the universal guidelines for the formation of seminarians. Earlier this year, Pope Francis created a working group tasked with proposing such revisions. Importantly, the document also proposes that bishops are in need of formation, at the time of their appointment but perhaps as an ongoing process, as well, “so that they may better assume their mission of bringing together in unity the gifts of the Spirit and exercise in a synodal manner the authority conferred on them” (148). It even suggests that cardinals should undergo a kind of formation, so that they “become better acquainted with one another and that the bonds of communion among them be fostered” (135).

Finally, the document calls on the Church to “invest in the formation of formators” (143), that is, to provide adequate training and opportunities for spiritual growth for the ministers and catechists, primarily lay people, who provide much of the catechesis for young people participating in the sacraments of initiation and faith formation for adults. It proposes that these formators, and the institutions to which they belong, are “on the frontline of a Church that is always moving outwards in mission” (146), and therefore high quality programs for their training and development need to be established.

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I’ve only scratched the surface of the contents of the Synod’s final document, and I may return to it in future articles in Window Light. It might be worthwhile, for example, to further explore what it has to say about decision-making in the Church, a topic I predicted back in August would end up being an important consideration at the Synod despite receiving little attention in the leadup to the gathering.

But the document’s recommendations regarding the formation of the faithful, both shared formation in light of our common vocation as baptized Christians and formation in distinct roles and ministries, provides a blueprint that has the potential to change how leadership is exercised in the Church and to encourage more of the faithful to take up their calling as missionary disciples.