Synodality within a Liberal World
Fr. Olek Stirrat
Synod (along with all its cognates) has become a bit of a trendy and hip word in ecclesiastical parlance today. What faith was for Paul and critique was for Kant, Synod is for the churchmen of today. One of the reasons it has been accepted today as relevant, is that it reflects and more particularly manifests the cultural climate not only of the Church but of society more generally. Since many people within the Church today are shaped by an outlook of tolerance and of accommodating to the culture around us, synodality seems to be the way forward. What cultural climate is it shaped by one may ask? In a word: liberalism. With the “universal phase” of the Synod on Synodality nearing in October, there is an urgent need for clarity on synodality. We must acknowledge the problems which flow from the context of liberalism, chief among them being a lack of focus/telos, a problematic understanding of the will, and an upsetting of the traditional hierarchy of reality and potentiality, if the bishops are to have a solid theological foundation for their discussions on synodality.
In her paper Between the Theory and the Praxis of the Synodal Process, Tracey Rowland describes synodality as a
“weasel word” in the sense that it means different things to different people. Just as weasels are good at using their slender elongated bodies to duck, weave, and slither under fences into chicken coops and other places where they are not wanted, the word “synodality” can change its theological shape depending upon the precise theological content given it by the person using it, and thereby justifying more than one form of ecclesial governance.1
This description of synodality as a weasel word is apt, since it expresses an accommodationist approach and, in another sense, it ducks and weaves to avoid something unwanted, rather than being oriented towards a goal. It is shaped by a movement away from, rather than towards a goal. This is a first point of contact with liberalism. T. S. Eliot describes liberalism as “a movement not so much defined by its ends as by its starting point; away from rather than towards, something definite.”2 Here the undermining of the starting point is essential to liberalism as well as synodality. Further both liberalism and synodality are focused on evolution and progress in themselves without regard to the destination. Thus asking the question, “What is the point?” is not welcome. In metaphysical terms, it is the undermining of Aristotle’s final cause since there is no telos. This is expressed in the vocabulary and the metaphors being used. We hear the focus upon the journey.3 This is in stark contrast in the Christian tradition to the richer concept of pilgrimage, which implies a destination, and thus a point or telos.
On the other hand, there seems to be some justification for the use of the term synodality today from an etymological point of view. Synod comes from two Greek words σύν and ὁδός, meaning “together on the way.” Now a journey seems to be an apt description in such a setting. Further, when Jesus calls the Apostles He simply asks them to “follow me” (Jn 1:43). They are with Him on the journey. However, we come to an impasse since further on in John’s gospel, during His farewell discourse, it seems as if Jesus does not want to be together on the way since He says that where He is going they cannot come (cf. Jn 14:33). Jesus goes this journey alone, in order to prepare a place for his Apostles. However, Thomas begs the question, a question that has echoed and resounded through ecclesiastical gatherings and pastoral situations over the last few years within the context of synodality, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5), to which Jesus responds, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6). Here in a nutshell is the answer to the problem of synodality we have been facing: every answer to the question of synodality must be Christocentric.
The destination is the Father and Jesus is the way. In his commentary on this passage, St. Augustine has the following reflection:
There was need, therefore, for His saying, I am the way, in order to show those who knew Him that they knew the way, which they thought themselves ignorant of; but what need was there for His saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” when, after knowing the way by which He went, they had still to learn whither He was going, but just because it was to the truth and to the life He was going? By Himself, therefore, He was going to Himself.4
Augustine goes on to say that “the Son of God, who is ever in the Father the Truth and Life, by assuming man's nature became the Way. Walk by Him as Man, and you come to God. By Him you go, to Him you go. Look not out for any way whereby to come to Him, besides Himself.”5
The Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, was from all eternity the Truth and the Life, but only through His Incarnation did He become the Way. Through Him, we go to Him. In a poetic vein, Eliot says that in the end is my beginning, through the way, we come to the way. This frames the two endpoints, as it were, namely the beginning beginning and the end, “Where do I come from and where am I going?” This question posed by St. Augustine is what becomes the context within which we must frame our understanding of synodality. We must tend toward Christ if synodality would make any sense.
Returning to Eliot’s point that liberalism is “a movement not so much defined by its ends as by its starting point; away from rather than towards, something definite,” begs the question: If synodality reflects liberalism, what is it pointing away from? What does it duck and weave away from? The more recent historical analysis would point toward the sexual abuse crisis; however, upon deeper theological reflection, it seems as if the point of departure, is the Catholic Church herself, as exemplified in the turn away from the Cross. In his seminal work, The Politics of the Real, D. C. Schindler comments that “it is a matter of straightforward historical fact that what defines liberalism in its origins is a rejection of Christianity, specifically in the form of the Catholic Church, at least in its actual historical condition in the Middle Ages.”6 He goes on to describe the Catholic Church as a “transformative synthesis of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans.”7 Bringing these three dimensions together historically, one can recognize that the Church is cruciform in structure, uniting the two vertical dimensions of the Judaic understanding of God entering time from above and the Greek’s yearning from below for the divine being through nature, bound to the horizontal Roman understanding of the historical establishment of the res publica. To take it further, when we look toward Jesus on the Cross, we recognize the claim that He was the king of the Jews was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek (cf. Jn 19:20), symbolizing the unity of these three dimensions. Thus a neutralization of this unity by the excision of one of its elements may be seen as a rejection of the Cross more generally and the crucifix more specifically. Hence, synodality within the context of liberalism is born in a turn away from the crucifix, a fear of gazing upon the crucified Lord. We see this reflected in discussions about how synodality could be a vehicle for changing some of the Church’s “hard teachings” (Jn 6:60), particularly her sexual ethic and Eucharistic restrictions. However, for St. Paul, the openly justifiable object of boasting is “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). Here is the remedy, the elixir to the torpor and despair that many feel. Let us gaze upon the crucified Lord, and boast in Him. Let us turn toward the Cross rather than away from it as liberalism would have us do, in the same way that Moses turned toward that other great mysterium tremendum et fascinans in the burning bush from which God spoke to him (cf. Ex 3:2–3). Christ crucified is the telos and focus of authentic synodality.
The second dimension of synodality within a liberalistic context to be considered, which organically flows from the first, is the impoverishment of the will. The problem with regard to the question of telos is not only its essence, but whether it even exists—namely, whether there is even a possibility of having a telos. Here is where the first dimension of the lack of telos is intimately bound with the transformed notion of the will which arose in the 17th and 18th centuries. Without a focus, goal, or orientation, one may despair of the will’s capacity to attain anything. This ultimately exemplifies a despair, loss, or impoverishment of our own capacity to discover any meaning within reality that may motivate and draw us by love. We are locked within our own wills without a capacity to reach out beyond ourselves to a telos. This impoverishment in our understanding of the will is largely due to John Locke.
Locke describes the will as an active power that is determined and shaped by the mind of the individual rather than the objects from without which draw the person ecstatically. There is here a rethinking of the concept of the will such that the source and telos of will are contained within the self. Hence, the modern conception of the will is rooted in a despair of having any contact with reality outside of itself. It does not have the capacity to enter into relationship with things-in-themselves, but is always a tendentious and peripheral connection. Hence, we cannot step outside our own subjectivity. It is an egocentric conception of the will. What is the terminus ad quem of the will? It is not in things but in actions. The beginning and end of the will both reside in the self, not in reality. This results in a narcissistic egocentrism which is opposed to what is real and sees it as a threat upon one’s own subjectivity. This understanding of the will underpins synodality’s lack of teleology for, if the will is incapable of resting in anything outside itself, what is the point of proposing an end point which is beyond possibility? As one participant in North America noted, “People don’t know what the Synod on Synodality is for. They don’t understand the purpose, couldn’t grasp what was trying to be achieved.”8 And yet, the process has proceeded despite confusion about the what and how, because action is sufficient justification from liberalism’s point of view. This inversion of the will and collapse in on itself reflects a general trend more broadly within liberalism which is the third focal point of this paper—namely, the inversion of the traditional hierarchy of actuality and potentiality.
The prioritization of actuality over potentiality may be expressed in the metaphor that I come from somewhere and am heading towards a destination. When actuality and potentiality are inverted, such that potentiality takes priority, the present takes precedence over the past and future since the present is the domain of the possible most profoundly. Here the lack of telos and the will’s incapacity to extend beyond itself culminate in a new metaphysic, such that we become slaves of the moment. Hence, we see in our own existence not an inheritance we have received from our forebears and hand on to our progeny but something we create to manifest our own ego. My own existence is not inherited but created by me. There is here an inversion of freedom from something that I enter into, which precedes my existence, to the as-of-yet-to-be-determined capacity to choose. In other words, there is a prioritization of options over realized choice, of possibility over reality. Truth has been replaced by opinions. D. C. Schindler comments, “Precisely to the extent that a thing is not given as a reality beforehand, that is, prior to the agency of individuals, it can be neither bad nor good. It cannot be a good, insofar as final causality is the ratio boni and the final cause by definition precedes all else.… [A]n individual may choose which end (good) to pursue in a particular situation, but is not able to determine whether it is good. Goodness is always by definition given.”9 Reality, which is something that is given and precedes my volition, is now dependent upon it to such an extent that I don’t have a choice within a set of limited options but my choice determines what the options are, and ultimately reality itself. It is a manifestation of the existentialist tendency to prioritize existence over essence. And so we see within the synodal process the emphasis on listening and welcoming, but limited mention of truth.10 While it is important to listen, it must be done within the context of what is true. And what is true is not necessarily what one experiences or feels, as significant as those things are. What is true is that which is, regardless of subjective experience.
To conclude, three fundamental tenants of liberalism, namely the undermining of teleology and Aristotle’s final end along with the problematic understanding of the will and the prioritization of potentiality over and above actuality are also reflected in the understanding of synodality. At its worst, synodality can become hyper focused on the subjective—not reality qua reality, but reality as experienced. To reorient ourselves towards an apt and coherent understanding of synodality as being together on the way, in the final analysis synodality must be Christocentric if it is to be anything. We must turn toward the crucified Lord who embodies the Judaic, Greek, and Roman dimensions of reality. We are together on the way only if the Way is also the Truth and the Life. Further, we are only together to the extent that Jesus is with us, for as He reminds us, “I when I am lifted up will draw all men to myself” (Jn 3:14). The crucified Lord gathers His people around Him. He is the one who reorients our gaze and direction; thus, this should be the object of synodality: leading people to an encounter with Jesus. Merely listening to others and affirming their own experiences is not the Gospel. Let us turn to Christ in confidence and humility, so that we may embrace His Truth, follow Him on the Way, experience His Life, and live synodality at its best.
Fr. Olek Stirrat, born in Poland, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Adelaide. He was ordained in 2022 and is currently ministering in South Australia.
Tracey Rowland, “Between the Theory and the Praxis of the Synodal Process,” The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review 87, no. 2 (2023): 233–54, https://doi.org/10.1353/tho.2023.0011, 233.
Thomas Stearns Eliot, The Idea of Christian Society (London: Faber and Faber, 1939), 12–13.
The word “journey” appears 38 times in the Working Document for the Continental Stage.
“Tractate 69 (John 14:4-6),” Fathers of the Church: Tractates on the Gospel of John (Augustine), accessed May 24, 2023, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701069.htm, 2.
“Sermon 91 on the New Testament,” Fathers of the Church: Sermons on the New Testament (Augustine), accessed May 24, 2023,https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160391.htm, 4.
D. C. Schindler, The Politics of the Real: The Church between Liberalism and Integralism (Steubenville, OH: New Polity Press, 2021), 6.
Ibid., 11.
“For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.” The North American Final Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021-2024 Synod, #11.
The Politics of the Real: The Church between Liberalism and Integralism, 86.
In the Working Document for the Continental Stage, variants of the word “listen” appear 67 times, “welcome” 17 times, and “truth” just 4 times.