Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, OP. on the Synod (“walking together”) on Synodality (“walking together-ity”)

I recently read and then again read Bp. Barron’s reflections on the Synod (“walking together”) on Synodality (“walking together-ity”), (aka WTOWT).

I picked up from a Tweet by Card Zen (!) a link to reflections on WTOWT by the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, OP.

It is politely devastating.

Some points…

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Thus, the emphasis of the method is on listening to and understanding each other before solving any ‘issues’. That can be hard in a noisy world or one where people are divided into ideological camps. But it can be therapeutic. It can pour oil on troubled waters, getting people to stop, listen and understand before judging or arguing. Fr Anthony Lusvardi SJ of the Gregorian University recently explained that while the method helps turn down the temperature on controversial questions—at the Synod, ‘hot button’ issues like women’s ordination, “gay rights”, communion for the divorced and remarried, and celibacy—it doesn’t deliver theological clarity.[9] “It’s not well-suited for careful or complex theological or practical reasoning,” he explained. “Doing that requires thinking that is critical, that weighs the pros and cons of what people say. It also requires a degree of objectivity that this method is not well-suited to provide. Sound theology needs always to ask the question, ‘That may sound good, but is it true?’”

Indeed St Ignatius of Loyola was “very clear that not everything is the proper object of discernment. If something is a sin, you do not discern whether to do it or not. If you have made a commitment, you do not discern whether to be faithful to it or not. You only discern between things that are good. If whatever occurs to you in prayer contradicts what has been revealed by Jesus Christ, then it is not the work of the Holy Spirit.”

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Weighing the opinions

The Adsumus prayer from the Second Vatican Council, that we prayed each day at the Synod, invokes the guidance, teaching and unity afforded by the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26). I found the following lines of the prayer particularly instructive: “Let us find in You our unity, so that we may journey together to eternal life and not stray from the way of truth and what is right.” Deep listening to each other, expressing feelings, resonating in table groups, will not always help us find what is true and right. As one eminent theologian said to me: of the many synods he had attended, this one was the humanly best but theologically thinnest.

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Overall, the report has many positive observations.  However, there were these strong “howevers” which provide non-trivial counterwieght.