January 15, 2025 at 9:46 a.m.
SYNOD SUMMARY
The Synod on Synodality gatherings have come to an end. But what does that mean?
After a three-year journey of prayerful listening, reporting and discernment, dioceses around the globe have been asked to implement the proposals laid out in the synod’s 52-page final report released in October.
Last month, Avila Retirement Community in Albany hosted Sister Maria Cimperman, RSCJ, to speak on her experience at the synod assembly as a theologian/facilitator.
Cimperman, an ethicist and professor at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, was invited to attend the synod gatherings as a non-voting expert. In a historic shift from previous synods, both laymen and laywomen were invited to attend the meetings as delegates, with full participation from bishops.
Cimperman, who attended the October 2023 and 2024 synod assemblies, was one of only two non-voting experts from the United States, and one of 57 worldwide.
“To be at the synod was beyond what I imagined,” Cimperman said in an interview with The Evangelist. “It was truly humbling, and then you find yourself going, ‘I hope I can be helpful. I hope I can do what’s needed. I hope I can serve this process that is so important in our church.’ ”
Cimperman’s talk, “What Happened at the Synod? An Inside and Outward Look at the Catholic Church’s Call to Renewal,” broke down what and how each group discerned together and what impact the final report will have on local diocesan parishes.
“After Vatican II, I would say this is the most significant moment,” Cimperman said. “It’s at that level.”
In October 2024, the 52-page final document on the Synod on Synodality was released to the public. The report, which was approved by the 355 synod members in attendance and ratified by Pope Francis, outlines various proposals of reform for the global Church, each broken down into five sections: spiritual, relational, procedural, institutional and missionary.
Cimperman broke down how each table approached discussion for each topic using the “Conversations in the Spirit” method. Each member of the table (11 people and one facilitator) had a maximum of four minutes to share their thoughts on the discussed church teaching. In the next round, members shared something they heard that impacted them, building on not just their own opinions, but sharing how or what they heard moved them.
“You spoke for four minutes and you listened for 40,” Cimperman said, “and I found people leaning in. I found people listening deeply. … People said I found myself able to be more open to other positions and other ways because I felt people listened to me. I felt heard.”
One of the significant structural reforms in the synod report is the call for implementing or strengthening parish councils, and asking churches to use their councils to hold more synodal discernment on church issues.
“Priests, you didn’t lose your authority, but now you can do communal discernment,” Cimperman said. “In the synod, we did communal discernment, and Pope Francis modeled what that would mean. We did this two-year process, and at the end of it, the document came out with the recommendations.”
Typically, the pope would take that report and use it to format an apostolic exhortation, the pope’s final say on the topic. Instead, Pope Francis signed the people’s collected report. “It was written by the people of the synod, including people who are non-bishops. Everyone gave their input, and at the end, the pope still had the final authority, but the pope said that we have discerned,” Cimperman said.
This is the similar structure churches will be asked to try going forward.
“It’s nerve-racking to go through changes,” Cimperman said. But “it’s inviting us to say, ‘I know it takes longer when we do it with other people … but we need everyone.’ And then we have to be gentle with one another and say, ‘We’re going to experiment, we’re going to try this.’ ”
Women’s roles in Catholic leadership were another large discussion during the synod. The final document encouraged women’s participation in existing church roles, stating, “There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the church: What comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.”
While the matter of women deacons is still up for debate, the next steps of implementation will be calling on qualified women candidates to step into available roles and for the church as a whole to emphasize and teach on impactful women in the Catholic faith.
Following this call, Pope Francis appointed a woman to head a Vatican dicastery in December 2024 — a first in the history of the Catholic Church. Sister Simona Brambilla, MC, will serve as the prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
“That’s huge,” Cimperman said. “We never in 2,000 years that we know of have had a leader of one of the dicastrates — one of the major groupings of the church — (be) a woman religious.”
As the implementation process for the synod unfolds, the next best step is for the faithful to look over the final document and then seek out ways the Holy Spirit is calling them to act.
“Read the document and then go to your parish and say, ‘How can I help? How can I participate?’ ” Cimperman said.
A large call of churches and lay people will be to gather together and listen to one another as a means of moving the church forward.
“For me, it was watching the transformation in a way I have never before seen,” Cimperman said from her time at the synod. “It was watching people listen deeply to one another.”
And while finding common ground isn’t always easy, there is hope that it can be done.
“It’s not limited to what happened at the synod,” she added. “You, too, can do this. This can be yours as well.”
Note: The final synod document can be accessed using this link: https://www.synod.va/
en/news/final-document-of-the-xvi-assembly.html.
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