What is Synodality? - Video Transcript

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

To understand what synodality is and where it comes from, we must first look to the Gospels, that often show us Jesus on a journey, who walks alongside us and listens to our questions and concerns. 

In this style of encounter, he listens to us with an open heart, encountering us where we are, and yet calls us towards a deeper conversion. It is through this pastoral style can we begin to understand the synodal way. 

While the ancient practice of synodality can be found throughout Church history, where leaders of the Church gathered in a way to listen and discern together, what is different here is this invitation into the practice of synodality is for all the people of God.  

We are all invited to integrate this ancient practice at all levels of the Church - including local, diocesan, national and global - changing how we gather, how we listen, how we include, how we plan, how we discern, and how we move forward together as a people of God. 

This is not a one-off listening exercise, but rather it is an invitation towards an ongoing call to conversion, reshaping how we attend to all things, guided by the working of the Holy Spirit. As Jesus shows when we encounter each other in our similarities as well as in our differences, there are always risks, there are real tensions, and there are real challenges. 

And yet when we enter into these moments of encounter with an open heart [and] guided by the Holy Spirit, something new emerges - a deeper understanding, a deeper knowing, a deeper wisdom in which we create moments of personal transformation. 

When we build on this style of encounter, when we include different voices and open the space to all, to discern and dream together, [we] can we strengthen the bonds of love and enrich all aspects of Church life.  

By doing so, we witness to an ever increasingly fragmented, polarised and cynical world a different way of encountering and working together that seeks not to overcome our differences, but to use our differences to draw us towards a deeper wisdom. 

Our call towards a synodal Church means that not only do we flourish, but so does our world. This is the synodal path. This is the synodal way, and we are all invited on this journey.