okay, the percentages aren't high, but it's still got to be one of the biggest consultation exercises in history. not bad.
good to see my own archdiocese get a look in as well. some of the choicest excerpts from our synthesis, admittedly mostly from older Catholics:
"The ordained ministry should be the result of a discerned call independent of gender. The call of some women to ordained ministry must be recognised and celebrated. Women are ready and willing to serve, though they do not wish to be locked into the current outdated and unworkable model of priesthood."
"Liturgical scruples impoverish us. We need flexibility to ensure enlivened liturgies, with both music and message that speak to today’s young."
Regarding your last paragraph: given that this came "mostly from older Catholics", what gives you the confidence that "flexibility" in the liturgy will indeed "speak to today's young"? A vast majority of young Catholics I know have a strong preference for careful adherence to the rubrics, even if they otherwise differ in terms of liturgical posture, language, and style of music.
I agree. If the Holy Spirit is with the Church, there is no chance of it radically reversing its definitive teaching. So either the radicals in my archdiocese will separate from the universal Church, or they will stay but not get what they want. Either way, the Catholic faith will continue to be preserved in my local Church.
As those "mostly older" Catholics have not been successful in encouraging their own children and grandchildren to take an interest in their faith or in the synodal way--why are we listening to them? I don't want to be cruel or to mock, but perhaps it is time to say humbly, "we don't know what will work." And if we don't know how to fix the problem, we should probably stop planning to make changes. Why not weight the responses from areas of growth more heavily than those in decline? Follow the bright spots?
Most Catholics do not want to be asked what they think about religion. Most Catholics want priests and bishops to be experts in their fields. Is it any wonder that the majority of those who showed up want weird things that have nothing to do with our Faith? Like women who are ordained but aren't priests?
Most people want their religion to be a simple matter: This is what you have to do. This is how you do it. This is what you must not do. If you want to go deeper, here are some books you can read. That is how religion worked 100 years ago and that is what most people are looking for. Fewer synods and less hand-wringing. More confidence. What Catholics are saying by low Mass attendance and lack of interest is the synod is simply: get back to me when you have figured it out.
It depends on what the synod is for. It probably would not be a good use of time for the auto shop to ask its customers about the technical aspects of how it should be fixing cars. But if an auto shop held a listening session for its best customers to ask "how can we serve you better," that could under certain circumstances be very valuable.
I dislike when companies want me to do a 60 second survey after a phone call. I definitely am not attending an auto mechanics customer service synod. I am going to go somewhere else where they have that sort of thing figured out.
Well, it's an important point here that this only works for people who feel like they have a big stake in the operation already. You might feel differently if you were spending an hour at the auto shop every Sunday. (Not to mention major holidays, life events, and socializing with friends.)
All analogies fall apart if pressed far enough, but the point here is that when an organization takes on a big enough role in a person's life, that person *is* more likely to appreciate it if they have ways to offer feedback about how it is operated.
Yes, perhaps it is less like an auto mechanic and more like a hospital having a synod of parents whose children are receiving cancer treatment. That will be similar in terms of the investment of time.
I expect that some parents would attend such a synod and other parents would be too busy with life to attend it. But if the surgeons who called the synod asked for suggestions for how to treat cancer and also whether cancer is such a bad thing after all, parents would stop taking that hospital seriously.
Me too if I am talking about a machine and not an intelligent person. If he doesn’t show he knows what he is doing perhaps a mechanical synod would hold him/ her in good stead
When we had a parish merger there were multiple sessions at every stage because it was important. When there's just one session and I'm busy that night it's obviously not important.
There's SOME truth to this, but I think you could very much have an actively involved lay faithful in the Church, if the Church actually wanted the lay faithful to be involved.
Which they most certainly do not. But I think people understand that by the pope encouraging "listening" it means he's only interested if they reach a certain foreordained conclusion. Which most people just aren't terribly interested in. So that's a huge sort of apathy. Nobody cares about boomer religion. Even the boomers.
I agree on that first point. I'm not so sure about the second. I think the Holy Father really does want to hear whatever people on the "peripheries" are thinking--for instance, it certainly looks like he's appointing cardinals from the global South without requiring any kind of ideological track record (in contrast to the standard that's apparently being applied in the developed world). But it's rather weird and quixotic to try to find out what disengaged Catholics are thinking by asking them to engage in a bureaucratic-style set of church meetings.
Its kinda all anyone knows. There was a time when "The Church" was the clergy. Post Vatican II, "The Church" is the bureaucracy, of which the clergy is now one part of. I suppose its an improvement, but I'm not sure its a meaningful one. But that might explain why this is so much an issue of the bureaucracy.
And I'm not entirely sure there's not an ideological test going on, given the relative apathy and elephant in the room on how few of the Church from Africa are in senior positions in the Church. It is at least weird.
:) yeah. If your problem is that your existing processes can't reach people very well, it doesn't make much sense to tell those people, "here, use these processes to say how we can reach you better!" One of the strangest juxtapositions in the Church in recent years, to me, is the Holy Father memorably saying that we shouldn't be "self-referential," but then calling a "Synod on Synodality," which would seem to be almost a parody of self-referencing.
To be a bit crass, he's an old man stuck in his ways. He doesn't know any other way, and by his own admission, can't envision any form of Christianity that isn't exactly how he understands it working.
Its a pretty human thing, perfectly understandable. But it does make for a rather poor leader, and an immobile self-referential Church is likely to be ruled by someone as inflexible and self-referential.
I think that it is great that 10% of the laity want to be involved in the Church. I also think that the Church should exist for the 90% who are too busy or uninterested in that. They should be allowed to do what people always used to do: just go to Mass on Sunday and fulfill the other obligations and then go on with their life. And maybe get super into religion when they turn 70.
It’s nonsense to compare turnout with baptised. Everyone in ireland is baptised, practice level below 20%. Turnout is low but the people who stayed away now reacting because they don’t like the results. You should have showed up!!
Goal was to hear a wide range of views. That failed. Don’t think Francis wanted or expected to hear from 5m irish ‘baptised’ Catholics so playing that number game is silly. More conservative Catholics stayed away and now want to piss all over the process because the views gathered are being sent to rome in their name. Should have shown up and had their say.
Well, I agree that "conservative" Catholics cannot plausibly argue that there is some "silent majority" who agree with them but didn't speak up in the Synod--but I haven't heard anyone actually trying to argue that. But I *have* heard people argue that the Church should adopt more "liberal" policies and practices because non-practicing Catholics want them and would start practicing again if those policies and practices were in place. To the extent that view gets expressed in the Synod, it seems valuable to note that it is not based on (much) feedback from non-practicing Catholics themselves.
I read all 26 diocesan synthesis in ireland and the vast majority were concerned about lack of youth and faith development. Yes they were open to women in ministry and better attitude to LGBT but most of all they wanted change that would result in better leadership and better church. I think most Catholics are middle of the road and neither left or right should be allowed hijack the synodal path.
Australia is an interesting learning point. My sources tell me it had little lay and family participants, mostly senior religious and people on the church pay role. Also little representation of ethnic groups. So we need good research and analysis but let’s be fair . 30k people showed up in England and Wales, close to that in ireland. 30,000 sounds a lot better than one percent and is more real.
The real question now is - what’s the next steps- let’s get everyone out and in a room and have the talk and listen sessions
This is just a silly argument. If people actively chose not to show up the responses aren't representative of what Catholics think because they didn't capture a representative sample. Saying we'll just move forward with what we got and act like it represents what "Catholics" think won't make it so.
I never have to worry that someone changed the Church while I wasn't paying attention. These things cannot change. If someone says that women can be priests or that men can marry each other, they leave the Church by saying such a thing. They cannot take the Church with them. The Church stays right where it has always been.
You're missing the point. Of course the process can move forward however the powers that be want it to. That doesn't make the responses they received representative of what Catholics think if masses of Catholics actively decided not to participate. In other words if synodal is understood to mean listening to all, the process isn't that at all if people have too little trust in it to participate.
But by all means - move forward in the name of synodality pretending as if the input of all Catholics was received, noted and considered.
You are missing the point. I’m not advocating some fake process, I’m advocating people taking part. How could people not trust a process they had no engagement with? Is the pope and local bishops not worthy of some trust? More plausible explanation in the face of no evidence to back your claim is that most people didn’t hear about it/were too busy/don’t care.
But it is only a first step. If there is further synodal meetings there needs to be broader engagement. But stop moaning that your voice isn’t being heard, turn up and be heard. That’s what I am saying.
We have heard from Catholics who aren't practicing. We just haven't recognized that by staying away, they are communicating. What are they saying by staying away? Either "we don't know what's going on," "we don't care," or "we don't trust that our input is valued." Perhaps it's some combination of these. But every Catholic who did not participate is certainly communicating a message, which synod organizers need to recognize. Hats off to the Diocese of Hamilton in NZ.
Fair. But that’s why it’s the start of a listening process. Little acorns. I wouldn’t say every catholic who didn’t participate is communicating a message- that’s a bit far fetched- many don’t care, many didn’t know about it, many are busy with their lives and have no time etc ad nausem. Truth is most baptised Catholics are not interested- that’s why they have walked away! There’s no great silent majority out there, the church is now the periphery. And those outside the periphery are saying ‘leave us alone’- they are not sitting around awaiting your evangelisation.
World doesn’t care and Catholics don’t have the words. Crisis of faith and as Pope Francis says, it’s change of an epoch.
Getting people to participate in a consultative process like this requires getting them to believe that what they say in the process will make some practical difference. I don't think people feel like that about the Synod. I think people feel like diocesan and Vatican officials will make a show of "listening," and then do whatever they already wanted to do anyway. That may not always be true, especially in some dioceses, but it's often how people feel.
While these are not high numbers, they are probably very high for such an ambitious attempt (global!) with so little in the way of support or infrastructure. It's not as if everyone had been given a survey he was required to fill out, the way elections are held in some countries. Most surveys receive only a small percentage of replies, which is why census workers go from house to house -- and even then, some people are unreachable and others lie. No one went from house to house, or even parish to parish for the main Mass of the week, to ask the same list of short list of questions.
That said, it's easy to see why most who heard about it gave it a pass. At least in the USA, these things are generally useless -- either data gathering that gets written up and put on a shelf, or a pretend gathering of input for a pre-determined decision. I forgot to go to my "synod meeting," and I usually go to these things just so I can say I did, and that I saw what happened (instead of relying on reports), as well as in the off chance that they are actually helpful. I've been to a few such things that really WERE useful and really DID gather information, so there's always hope. But I didn't have much hope for this one -- at this point, if the bishops don't know what is happening in their dioceses why in the world not? The pope seems to have a clear (to himself, anyway) idea of what he wants to do in mind, and doesnt seem actually interested in what anyone else thinks about it, even the most devout and holy people. If he leaves Cardinal Zen out on the doorstep, what point is there in my word at the Synod within a Synod within a Synod within a Synod?
As one who not only facilitated but participated in several synodal sessions throughout the U.S. I will say that those who participated were intentional,honest,humble and searching.My feeling about this process in the US lies at the feet of many ho hum bishops who knew about this well in advance,claimed they did not have enough time to get the ball rolling and then sat back till the last minute and did little. In my own very large parish,I approached our administrator in May,had three meetings knowing more than he did and then had someone else do the presentation which resulted in few even understanding what it was all about. Laity involvement? Are you kidding me. I feel that the laity with whom I interacted are far more informed and anxious to do the work our Holy Father asks. Of course that depends on whether you recognize Pope Francis as Pope. It would be interesting to see what efforts by the local bishops resulted in the numbers you offer. The Holy Spirit is at work here and despite the lame efforts of clergy,will prevail.I need no stats to convince me.
In the Archdiocese of Louisville's synthesis Addendum, it lists 2389 people participated. I'm not sure the best place to get numbers of Mass-going or self-identifying Catholics, but the statistics page says there are about 200,000 Catholics in Arch-Lou, which makes the participation rate 1.19%.
Maybe ordinary churchgoers thought that the whole thing was a colossal waste of time, and that those who would show up for "listening sessions" were those who wish to pull the Church leftward. IMHO, the Church needs to be in the world, but not of it. Too many activists wish to make the Church conform to the world. Check with the mainline Protestant denominations about how well that has worked for them.
Which is a shame, because the one I attended for my diocese had no activism like that, at least not within my hearing range. Regardless of my feelings on it, the Pope has asked for people to speak, and I wasn't about to let that opportunity slip by or let someone else speak for me. I'm very glad I went and look forward to seeing the results (which I haven't seen yet).
If people complain about the results of their diocesan Synod because they contain excessive activism about things which the Church cannot change even if she wanted, yet refused to show up, then they have only themselves to blame. They allowed that to be the dominant narrative. And also, if it's all pointless and they didn't want any part of it, why do they care what came out of it?
I didn't attend because when I had Professor Richard McBrien for ecclesiology, he had us read an article by Von Balthasar which described the Church as the Body of Christ. The clergy are supposed to be the skeleton and the laity the skin which comes into contact with the rest of the world, according to Von Balthasar's interpretation of the documents of Vatican II. As a lay person I have no desire to facilitate the Church becoming all skeleton and no flesh. The cure for clericalism is not to turn everyone into a cleric. So I didn't go.
Respectfully, at my listening session, at no point were we told we were being made clerics. We weren't told we were doing things that normally were for clergy, and Church teachings weren't being put up for vote. I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Most Catholics in the USA probably don’t know what the Church teaches about extremely important believes or don’t care. Catholics in our political system are a good example. Our Church like our political system has been infiltrated by strong left leaning folks who want what they believe is “right and just”. The problem is they believe their own lie and demand everyone else do the same. Courage, we need courage, our priest, bishops and cardinals need courage to speak the Truth, teach the Truth and live the Truth. We may all suffer persecution but so be it. If we do not many will be lost.
I personally believe the ordinary Catholic, especially the younger ones, are searching for the Truth. They are the ones who will help the Churc be radical about the faith….you know… like Jesus did.
My parish had two sessions to neither of which I could attend. When I asked if they had the online questionnaire I was told that only those who could attend in person would be heard. So that was disappointing, to say the list. On the other hand, I didn't feel I could answer many of the question, either because they were above my pay grade or because my answer would have been, "Isn't that already settled?"
While admittedly in an odd situation (military overseas & attend local parish) I never saw anything about how to participate. Not even an online survey, which I totally would have done.
So, I’d wonder if dioceses that get bigger percentages had multiple (easy!!) avenues for the laity to share input.
That sounds likely to me. We had a phone number to send a text to, to sign up for updates, and looking back I see that I got only two texts from it ever (a confirmation that I had signed up, and immediately afterwards a link to a web page that was going to list where the sessions in the diocese are) which seems like a missed opportunity. When I sign up for some prayer related text system, like Lent or May, the diocese remembers to post prayers to it so maybe we should have had the prayer-texting people in charge of the synod :-)
Is there any level of accountability in the synthesis documents to ensure that the bishops aren't just editorializing to fit their agenda? In the Seattle document, what was written seems to be in perfect alignment with what many in the Seattle diocese perceive as the particular bishop's ideology.
While I don't know Catholics from around the entire state, pretty much all of the ones I do know have expressed major grief about having both communion on the tongue and coffee/donuts banned, the latter being banned for longer than the state required, but none of these were mentioned at all in the document. Only that a "minority of voices questioned the suspension of public Masses" and a contrast with the "majority" who were happy about the Church response. I saw no similar juxtaposition of "minority" and "majority" when certain voices were quoted and referred to on the subjects of proposed changes in Church teaching on "LGBTQ Catholics" and women's ordination--which was referred to in the document as a "matter of justice".
If it's just the case that the "conservative" Catholics simply didn't show up to give their voice, then what does that say about the skew of the data collected and the validity of the conclusions arrived at?
Peter said that Jewish Christians could eat pork and gentile converts didn’t need circumcision. The church evolves and changes that’s why it is so successful. One minute Christian’s are being martyred the next minute the successors of Peter are burning Christian’s alive. Change or die
okay, the percentages aren't high, but it's still got to be one of the biggest consultation exercises in history. not bad.
good to see my own archdiocese get a look in as well. some of the choicest excerpts from our synthesis, admittedly mostly from older Catholics:
"The ordained ministry should be the result of a discerned call independent of gender. The call of some women to ordained ministry must be recognised and celebrated. Women are ready and willing to serve, though they do not wish to be locked into the current outdated and unworkable model of priesthood."
"Liturgical scruples impoverish us. We need flexibility to ensure enlivened liturgies, with both music and message that speak to today’s young."
Regarding your last paragraph: given that this came "mostly from older Catholics", what gives you the confidence that "flexibility" in the liturgy will indeed "speak to today's young"? A vast majority of young Catholics I know have a strong preference for careful adherence to the rubrics, even if they otherwise differ in terms of liturgical posture, language, and style of music.
I don't think it will. I think that these were eye-catching excerpts, not that they are correct.
Got it. I misunderstood what you meant by "choicest".
In that case your diocese is dead, you just haven’t realised it yet.
we're not gone yet. in a serious crisis of faith, yes.
Your diocese wants to be Episcopalian without the good music. There is zero chance of that being a success.
I agree. If the Holy Spirit is with the Church, there is no chance of it radically reversing its definitive teaching. So either the radicals in my archdiocese will separate from the universal Church, or they will stay but not get what they want. Either way, the Catholic faith will continue to be preserved in my local Church.
As those "mostly older" Catholics have not been successful in encouraging their own children and grandchildren to take an interest in their faith or in the synodal way--why are we listening to them? I don't want to be cruel or to mock, but perhaps it is time to say humbly, "we don't know what will work." And if we don't know how to fix the problem, we should probably stop planning to make changes. Why not weight the responses from areas of growth more heavily than those in decline? Follow the bright spots?
Yeah, my kids are fed up with the music that the admittedly older Catholics think speaks to today’s young.
Most Catholics do not want to be asked what they think about religion. Most Catholics want priests and bishops to be experts in their fields. Is it any wonder that the majority of those who showed up want weird things that have nothing to do with our Faith? Like women who are ordained but aren't priests?
Most people want their religion to be a simple matter: This is what you have to do. This is how you do it. This is what you must not do. If you want to go deeper, here are some books you can read. That is how religion worked 100 years ago and that is what most people are looking for. Fewer synods and less hand-wringing. More confidence. What Catholics are saying by low Mass attendance and lack of interest is the synod is simply: get back to me when you have figured it out.
Father,respectfully,you infantalize a huge population.
I don't want my auto mechanic to hold a synod that I would attend. I want him to just know what he is doing.
It depends on what the synod is for. It probably would not be a good use of time for the auto shop to ask its customers about the technical aspects of how it should be fixing cars. But if an auto shop held a listening session for its best customers to ask "how can we serve you better," that could under certain circumstances be very valuable.
I dislike when companies want me to do a 60 second survey after a phone call. I definitely am not attending an auto mechanics customer service synod. I am going to go somewhere else where they have that sort of thing figured out.
Well, it's an important point here that this only works for people who feel like they have a big stake in the operation already. You might feel differently if you were spending an hour at the auto shop every Sunday. (Not to mention major holidays, life events, and socializing with friends.)
All analogies fall apart if pressed far enough, but the point here is that when an organization takes on a big enough role in a person's life, that person *is* more likely to appreciate it if they have ways to offer feedback about how it is operated.
Yes, perhaps it is less like an auto mechanic and more like a hospital having a synod of parents whose children are receiving cancer treatment. That will be similar in terms of the investment of time.
I expect that some parents would attend such a synod and other parents would be too busy with life to attend it. But if the surgeons who called the synod asked for suggestions for how to treat cancer and also whether cancer is such a bad thing after all, parents would stop taking that hospital seriously.
Me too if I am talking about a machine and not an intelligent person. If he doesn’t show he knows what he is doing perhaps a mechanical synod would hold him/ her in good stead
I think what they were saying was: if you want me to show up, tell me what you're going to do with my feedback and why it will make a difference.
When we had a parish merger there were multiple sessions at every stage because it was important. When there's just one session and I'm busy that night it's obviously not important.
There's SOME truth to this, but I think you could very much have an actively involved lay faithful in the Church, if the Church actually wanted the lay faithful to be involved.
Which they most certainly do not. But I think people understand that by the pope encouraging "listening" it means he's only interested if they reach a certain foreordained conclusion. Which most people just aren't terribly interested in. So that's a huge sort of apathy. Nobody cares about boomer religion. Even the boomers.
I agree on that first point. I'm not so sure about the second. I think the Holy Father really does want to hear whatever people on the "peripheries" are thinking--for instance, it certainly looks like he's appointing cardinals from the global South without requiring any kind of ideological track record (in contrast to the standard that's apparently being applied in the developed world). But it's rather weird and quixotic to try to find out what disengaged Catholics are thinking by asking them to engage in a bureaucratic-style set of church meetings.
Its kinda all anyone knows. There was a time when "The Church" was the clergy. Post Vatican II, "The Church" is the bureaucracy, of which the clergy is now one part of. I suppose its an improvement, but I'm not sure its a meaningful one. But that might explain why this is so much an issue of the bureaucracy.
And I'm not entirely sure there's not an ideological test going on, given the relative apathy and elephant in the room on how few of the Church from Africa are in senior positions in the Church. It is at least weird.
:) yeah. If your problem is that your existing processes can't reach people very well, it doesn't make much sense to tell those people, "here, use these processes to say how we can reach you better!" One of the strangest juxtapositions in the Church in recent years, to me, is the Holy Father memorably saying that we shouldn't be "self-referential," but then calling a "Synod on Synodality," which would seem to be almost a parody of self-referencing.
To be a bit crass, he's an old man stuck in his ways. He doesn't know any other way, and by his own admission, can't envision any form of Christianity that isn't exactly how he understands it working.
Its a pretty human thing, perfectly understandable. But it does make for a rather poor leader, and an immobile self-referential Church is likely to be ruled by someone as inflexible and self-referential.
"Most Catholics do not want to be asked what they think about religion."
And that's a problem. Most Catholics do not want to evangelize and talk about their religion with other people.
I think that it is great that 10% of the laity want to be involved in the Church. I also think that the Church should exist for the 90% who are too busy or uninterested in that. They should be allowed to do what people always used to do: just go to Mass on Sunday and fulfill the other obligations and then go on with their life. And maybe get super into religion when they turn 70.
It’s nonsense to compare turnout with baptised. Everyone in ireland is baptised, practice level below 20%. Turnout is low but the people who stayed away now reacting because they don’t like the results. You should have showed up!!
It's not nonsense if the *goal* of the synod was to hear from Catholics who aren't practicing, which is what Pope Francis seemed to say.
Goal was to hear a wide range of views. That failed. Don’t think Francis wanted or expected to hear from 5m irish ‘baptised’ Catholics so playing that number game is silly. More conservative Catholics stayed away and now want to piss all over the process because the views gathered are being sent to rome in their name. Should have shown up and had their say.
Well, I agree that "conservative" Catholics cannot plausibly argue that there is some "silent majority" who agree with them but didn't speak up in the Synod--but I haven't heard anyone actually trying to argue that. But I *have* heard people argue that the Church should adopt more "liberal" policies and practices because non-practicing Catholics want them and would start practicing again if those policies and practices were in place. To the extent that view gets expressed in the Synod, it seems valuable to note that it is not based on (much) feedback from non-practicing Catholics themselves.
I read all 26 diocesan synthesis in ireland and the vast majority were concerned about lack of youth and faith development. Yes they were open to women in ministry and better attitude to LGBT but most of all they wanted change that would result in better leadership and better church. I think most Catholics are middle of the road and neither left or right should be allowed hijack the synodal path.
Australia is an interesting learning point. My sources tell me it had little lay and family participants, mostly senior religious and people on the church pay role. Also little representation of ethnic groups. So we need good research and analysis but let’s be fair . 30k people showed up in England and Wales, close to that in ireland. 30,000 sounds a lot better than one percent and is more real.
The real question now is - what’s the next steps- let’s get everyone out and in a room and have the talk and listen sessions
This is just a silly argument. If people actively chose not to show up the responses aren't representative of what Catholics think because they didn't capture a representative sample. Saying we'll just move forward with what we got and act like it represents what "Catholics" think won't make it so.
And yet that is what’s happened. All those reports have gone to Rome.
Next time show up.
I never have to worry that someone changed the Church while I wasn't paying attention. These things cannot change. If someone says that women can be priests or that men can marry each other, they leave the Church by saying such a thing. They cannot take the Church with them. The Church stays right where it has always been.
You're missing the point. Of course the process can move forward however the powers that be want it to. That doesn't make the responses they received representative of what Catholics think if masses of Catholics actively decided not to participate. In other words if synodal is understood to mean listening to all, the process isn't that at all if people have too little trust in it to participate.
But by all means - move forward in the name of synodality pretending as if the input of all Catholics was received, noted and considered.
You are missing the point. I’m not advocating some fake process, I’m advocating people taking part. How could people not trust a process they had no engagement with? Is the pope and local bishops not worthy of some trust? More plausible explanation in the face of no evidence to back your claim is that most people didn’t hear about it/were too busy/don’t care.
But it is only a first step. If there is further synodal meetings there needs to be broader engagement. But stop moaning that your voice isn’t being heard, turn up and be heard. That’s what I am saying.
We have heard from Catholics who aren't practicing. We just haven't recognized that by staying away, they are communicating. What are they saying by staying away? Either "we don't know what's going on," "we don't care," or "we don't trust that our input is valued." Perhaps it's some combination of these. But every Catholic who did not participate is certainly communicating a message, which synod organizers need to recognize. Hats off to the Diocese of Hamilton in NZ.
Fair. But that’s why it’s the start of a listening process. Little acorns. I wouldn’t say every catholic who didn’t participate is communicating a message- that’s a bit far fetched- many don’t care, many didn’t know about it, many are busy with their lives and have no time etc ad nausem. Truth is most baptised Catholics are not interested- that’s why they have walked away! There’s no great silent majority out there, the church is now the periphery. And those outside the periphery are saying ‘leave us alone’- they are not sitting around awaiting your evangelisation.
World doesn’t care and Catholics don’t have the words. Crisis of faith and as Pope Francis says, it’s change of an epoch.
Getting people to participate in a consultative process like this requires getting them to believe that what they say in the process will make some practical difference. I don't think people feel like that about the Synod. I think people feel like diocesan and Vatican officials will make a show of "listening," and then do whatever they already wanted to do anyway. That may not always be true, especially in some dioceses, but it's often how people feel.
Exactly why I didn’t participate.
While these are not high numbers, they are probably very high for such an ambitious attempt (global!) with so little in the way of support or infrastructure. It's not as if everyone had been given a survey he was required to fill out, the way elections are held in some countries. Most surveys receive only a small percentage of replies, which is why census workers go from house to house -- and even then, some people are unreachable and others lie. No one went from house to house, or even parish to parish for the main Mass of the week, to ask the same list of short list of questions.
That said, it's easy to see why most who heard about it gave it a pass. At least in the USA, these things are generally useless -- either data gathering that gets written up and put on a shelf, or a pretend gathering of input for a pre-determined decision. I forgot to go to my "synod meeting," and I usually go to these things just so I can say I did, and that I saw what happened (instead of relying on reports), as well as in the off chance that they are actually helpful. I've been to a few such things that really WERE useful and really DID gather information, so there's always hope. But I didn't have much hope for this one -- at this point, if the bishops don't know what is happening in their dioceses why in the world not? The pope seems to have a clear (to himself, anyway) idea of what he wants to do in mind, and doesnt seem actually interested in what anyone else thinks about it, even the most devout and holy people. If he leaves Cardinal Zen out on the doorstep, what point is there in my word at the Synod within a Synod within a Synod within a Synod?
As one who not only facilitated but participated in several synodal sessions throughout the U.S. I will say that those who participated were intentional,honest,humble and searching.My feeling about this process in the US lies at the feet of many ho hum bishops who knew about this well in advance,claimed they did not have enough time to get the ball rolling and then sat back till the last minute and did little. In my own very large parish,I approached our administrator in May,had three meetings knowing more than he did and then had someone else do the presentation which resulted in few even understanding what it was all about. Laity involvement? Are you kidding me. I feel that the laity with whom I interacted are far more informed and anxious to do the work our Holy Father asks. Of course that depends on whether you recognize Pope Francis as Pope. It would be interesting to see what efforts by the local bishops resulted in the numbers you offer. The Holy Spirit is at work here and despite the lame efforts of clergy,will prevail.I need no stats to convince me.
In the Archdiocese of Louisville's synthesis Addendum, it lists 2389 people participated. I'm not sure the best place to get numbers of Mass-going or self-identifying Catholics, but the statistics page says there are about 200,000 Catholics in Arch-Lou, which makes the participation rate 1.19%.
https://www.archlou.org/about-the-archdiocese/history/statistics/
https://www.archlou.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Synod-Report-2022-Final.pdf
Maybe ordinary churchgoers thought that the whole thing was a colossal waste of time, and that those who would show up for "listening sessions" were those who wish to pull the Church leftward. IMHO, the Church needs to be in the world, but not of it. Too many activists wish to make the Church conform to the world. Check with the mainline Protestant denominations about how well that has worked for them.
Which is a shame, because the one I attended for my diocese had no activism like that, at least not within my hearing range. Regardless of my feelings on it, the Pope has asked for people to speak, and I wasn't about to let that opportunity slip by or let someone else speak for me. I'm very glad I went and look forward to seeing the results (which I haven't seen yet).
If people complain about the results of their diocesan Synod because they contain excessive activism about things which the Church cannot change even if she wanted, yet refused to show up, then they have only themselves to blame. They allowed that to be the dominant narrative. And also, if it's all pointless and they didn't want any part of it, why do they care what came out of it?
I didn't attend because when I had Professor Richard McBrien for ecclesiology, he had us read an article by Von Balthasar which described the Church as the Body of Christ. The clergy are supposed to be the skeleton and the laity the skin which comes into contact with the rest of the world, according to Von Balthasar's interpretation of the documents of Vatican II. As a lay person I have no desire to facilitate the Church becoming all skeleton and no flesh. The cure for clericalism is not to turn everyone into a cleric. So I didn't go.
Respectfully, at my listening session, at no point were we told we were being made clerics. We weren't told we were doing things that normally were for clergy, and Church teachings weren't being put up for vote. I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Most Catholics in the USA probably don’t know what the Church teaches about extremely important believes or don’t care. Catholics in our political system are a good example. Our Church like our political system has been infiltrated by strong left leaning folks who want what they believe is “right and just”. The problem is they believe their own lie and demand everyone else do the same. Courage, we need courage, our priest, bishops and cardinals need courage to speak the Truth, teach the Truth and live the Truth. We may all suffer persecution but so be it. If we do not many will be lost.
I personally believe the ordinary Catholic, especially the younger ones, are searching for the Truth. They are the ones who will help the Churc be radical about the faith….you know… like Jesus did.
My parish had two sessions to neither of which I could attend. When I asked if they had the online questionnaire I was told that only those who could attend in person would be heard. So that was disappointing, to say the list. On the other hand, I didn't feel I could answer many of the question, either because they were above my pay grade or because my answer would have been, "Isn't that already settled?"
While admittedly in an odd situation (military overseas & attend local parish) I never saw anything about how to participate. Not even an online survey, which I totally would have done.
So, I’d wonder if dioceses that get bigger percentages had multiple (easy!!) avenues for the laity to share input.
That sounds likely to me. We had a phone number to send a text to, to sign up for updates, and looking back I see that I got only two texts from it ever (a confirmation that I had signed up, and immediately afterwards a link to a web page that was going to list where the sessions in the diocese are) which seems like a missed opportunity. When I sign up for some prayer related text system, like Lent or May, the diocese remembers to post prayers to it so maybe we should have had the prayer-texting people in charge of the synod :-)
Is there any level of accountability in the synthesis documents to ensure that the bishops aren't just editorializing to fit their agenda? In the Seattle document, what was written seems to be in perfect alignment with what many in the Seattle diocese perceive as the particular bishop's ideology.
While I don't know Catholics from around the entire state, pretty much all of the ones I do know have expressed major grief about having both communion on the tongue and coffee/donuts banned, the latter being banned for longer than the state required, but none of these were mentioned at all in the document. Only that a "minority of voices questioned the suspension of public Masses" and a contrast with the "majority" who were happy about the Church response. I saw no similar juxtaposition of "minority" and "majority" when certain voices were quoted and referred to on the subjects of proposed changes in Church teaching on "LGBTQ Catholics" and women's ordination--which was referred to in the document as a "matter of justice".
If it's just the case that the "conservative" Catholics simply didn't show up to give their voice, then what does that say about the skew of the data collected and the validity of the conclusions arrived at?
Peter said that Jewish Christians could eat pork and gentile converts didn’t need circumcision. The church evolves and changes that’s why it is so successful. One minute Christian’s are being martyred the next minute the successors of Peter are burning Christian’s alive. Change or die
"Behold, I make all things new" (Change or die is one possible summary of the following verses I suppose.)