Heeding our baptismal call: Prof Myriam Wijlens on the gifts and challenges of a synodal Church

When Prof Myriam Wijlens—theologian, canonist, ecumenist, consultant to several Vatican bodies and expert in safeguarding—came to Newman College on 14 August to give the Helder Camara Lecture, most of the faithful who packed the Oratory anticipated an evening of insight and wisdom on her chosen topic: ‘The prophetic voice of the laity in the renewal of the Catholic Church’. They were not disappointed as they listened to her describe how Australia’s gift of renewal was being reciprocated by the Church at large.

Having been introduced by Alicia Deak, the college’s Dean of Students, Prof Wijlens immediately struck a note of optimism, describing the Church as awakening from hibernation to become pilgrims in hope. She is grateful to Australia, she said, for the hospitality she experienced when helping to prepare the groundbreaking 2020 Light from the Southern Cross report on co-responsible governance, which eventually led to Australia’s Plenary Council in 2021 and 2022.

During the Plenary Council—which began the Herculean task of responding to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse—the Australian Church began to tread a unique path, she said, first by asking what God was saying to the Church in Australia in light of the crisis in trust that the Royal Commisision exposed, and second by recognising that all hands (not just episcopal or clerical ones) needed to be on deck to address the problem. While canon law restricts who can attend a plenary council, the Australian bishops requested and, significantly, received permission to extend attendance at the Plenary Council to more and different people.

The Synod on Synodality, currently about to enter its second sitting in Rome, has noted and joyfully received these gifts of the Australian Church, she said. Indeed, the Synod, in its synthesis, went beyond merely acknowledging the Australian experience. It asked to take Australia as an example and to learn from the Plenary Council process—including, among other things, by potentially amending the canons on synods.

Just as the light of the Southern Cross orients Australians, Prof Wijlens said, so the Australian example can help to orient the Church globally as it navigates the way ahead. Others in the wider Church are now asking what each part of the Church—each person, parish and grouping—can offer. In a unique development, many now are listening and discerning in response to each other as part of a synodal process that she described as no longer top-down but circular.

Prof Wijlens went on to consider how, in turn, the gifts of the current synodal process could inform others, including Australia.

From the beginning, she observed, people worked in teams and in parishes around the world using the techniques of spiritual conversation. Responses to the Synod’s questions had been received from the overwhelming majority of bishops’ conferences, as well as from dicasteries, religious communities and individuals. The participants insisted that the reports be circulated to each other.

A striking part of the process, she said, was that all respondants moved in the same direction and highlighted the same issues, strongly suggesting the presence of the Spirit. As a result, national meetings broadened into continental meetings.

In a further sign of change, when some participants called Rome and asked for instructions, Rome referred their questions back to them to determine—much to their surprise.

Overwhelmingly, those preparing continental responses wanted to meet and hear from members of the faithful. In Asia, for example, they met around a round table, setting the non-hierarchical tone.

Key to the process was input from ‘non-bishops’, at least 20 per cent of whom had to be women. The presence of facilitators—many of them also women—was another novelty, as was the practice of sending the results of these deliberations back to the faithful.

Prof Wijlens highlighted some of the key fruits of this fundamentally changed process, noting that participants did not begin with doctrine but experience, and that back-and-forth discussion led to a deepening of experience, a widening of horizons and a recognition that the Church is always contextual, while also pointing to the richness of diversity and deeper unity underpinning the Church.

She was particularly struck by the lack of rancour in the process. As one cardinal said, ‘This is my ninth synod and I have never had such a civilised and beautiful conversation—perhaps because there are women present!’ Listening is a key to the success of this process, she said, not just as an individual but grasping what the Word might mean for the whole community and then articulating what has been grasped.

A recurring theme was people’s desire to deepen, extend and receive formation to live and express their faith in meaningful ways, along with a growing awareness that baptism leads to co-responsibility for the Church’s mission, both internal and external.

In considering the true equality and dignity of all the baptised, she said, the Synod has named two ‘elephants in the room’. First, the issue of the role of women in the Church is not simply a Western one but extends throughout the Church, with all parts of the Church seeking a greater role for women. The same, she said, is true for others who have been excluded, including poor and disabled people and others who have been marginalised by the Church itself (including people in complex marital relationships). This equality is not based on secular constructs of human rights but on baptism and the dignity it confers.

She also noted the growing demand for compulsory diocesan and parish pastoral councils with a wider array of people than might simply be chosen by bishops or priests.

All this, of course, has led to a call to revisit canon law to remove all traces of exclusion and inequity, and to a more Christian reading of the canons as they stand. As Prof Wijlens put it, canonists are invited to clean (and possibly renew) the glasses through which they look at the law.

Canonists are not the only ones being called to something new though. As Prof Wijlens so clearly and engagingly demonstrated in her lecture, the Synod calls all of us to continue—together—along the path on which the Australian Church has already set out.