The synodality report

The diocese submits its findings from consultation sessions held in preparation for the 2023 Synod in Rome

By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald

In preparation for the October 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome, Pope Francis asked every diocese in the world to conduct its own consultation process, the findings from which would be filtered back to the Vatican. Small groups in each diocese were to meet between October 2021 and February 2022, to discuss matters of concern.

But not simply “discuss.” Rather, to engage in a deeper encounter called “synodality,” the subject of the synod itself.

Each diocese was instructed to gather the written results of its synodal discussions, summarize them in 10 pages or less, and submit them to their national conference of bishops, to be pooled with other diocesan reports and sent off to Rome.

Bishop Larry Silva emailed his report to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Aug. 16.

What is synodality? Bishop Silva defines it this way:

“The Church always must defer to its Head, who is Jesus Christ. He is sacramentally represented by his bishops and priests, who act in his name as pastors, overseers and servants. But the clergy are not as wise or holy as the Head, and the Body must always be in communication with the Head. So while the Church is not a democracy, it is essential that the pastors be in touch with the thoughts, aspirations, needs and dreams of the members of the Body. Thus, we have pastoral councils, finance councils, priests’ councils, deacon councils, and a host of other consultative bodies so that the flow of communication between head and members may always be healthy. Synodality is the recognition that every member of the Body is important and contributes to the welfare of the whole body. It also offers concrete mechanisms by which this can happen.”

However, Bishop Silva found the “concrete mechanisms” suggested by the Vatican for the current synodal process to be “extraordinarily broad, complex and challenging.”

“We did not know where to begin,” he said in his Aug. 16 report.

So, after a September 2021 discussion with the Diocesan Pastoral Council, it was decided to simplify the process for the Diocese of Honolulu.

A single question

People would receive “enough preparatory material to help them understand the broad nature of the consultation,” the bishop said. But then they were asked to discuss and answer a single all-encompassing question:

“How can all the members of the Catholic Church be more effective in proclaiming the living Jesus Christ to the world?”

The question was disseminated accompanied by a synod prayer, Scripture readings to reflect on and 10 Vatican-prepared topics to help move the synodality forward. It was distributed throughout the diocese by email, the diocesan weekly electronic newsletter and the Hawaii Catholic Herald.

The Vatican guidelines stated that, “Participants are encouraged to share with honesty and openness about their real-life experiences, and to reflect together on what the Holy Spirit might be revealing through what they share with each other.”

Joining in the local discussion were priests, deacons and deacon candidates and their wives, religious communities, parish pastoral councils, the bishop’s advisory councils, families, Catholic Charities Hawaii, apostolic movements and individuals.

Each group was asked to submit a brief report to a web portal managed by members of the Diocesan Pastoral Council.

“At the beginning of the process, many felt that a ‘synod on synodality’ was a silly, make-work endeavor,” Bishop Silva wrote in his report to the U.S. bishops. “But as the process unfolded, people understood that engaging the entire church — and beyond — in reflection of a fundamental question was enriching, exciting and hopeful.”

“About halfway through the process, it became clear to us that, while the specific points of input submitted were important, what was most important was that people were talking about the question,” he said.

The input “raises important points for the renewal of the church,” he said, but “it was really the engagement of people in the process that was most valuable.”

“It will be an exercise that must be carried on into the future, far after the 2023 Synod of Bishops has become history,” Bishop Silva said. “We believe the Holy Father had precisely this in mind in focusing on the synodal nature of the Church and engaging so many people in the process.”

Faith Leasiolagi, chairwoman of the Diocesan Pastoral Council last year, led the group of volunteers who collected and collated the responses.

Group participation

According to Leasiolagi, the diocese received 247 responses through the online form, 30% from individuals and 70% from groups or ministries. The prevalence of group participation indicated wide input, she said.

“Our responses were from parish ministries, parochial schools, diocesan offices, clergy, religious, lay men and women,” she said.

“When I think of synodality,” Leasiolagi said, “simply, I think of a medium where we experience, most tenderly, the heart of the Spirit through listening and dialogue with one another. It is sharing our knowledge, our ‘manao,’ through this opportunity to be heard and to be involved. In our sharing of our knowledge and our thoughts with one another, essentially we are sharing our perspectives of how we love.”

“When we gather for any meeting, it is usually to discuss a goal that needs to be met, or to discuss how to proceed with implementation of a specific procedure,” she said. “I see synodality in the same light, to gather to pray, to collaborate, to listen, share, discuss and discern.”

“By the end of the process, we should be able to say with great faith and firm hope that the outcome includes the full spectrum of our shared thoughts — the good, the bad, and the well-intended,” Leasiolagi said. “In faith, we recognize all that has been revealed in the outcome. We become aware of what works, what doesn’t work and what still needs work. With this outcome we are called to action.”

Overall, the Hawaii responses revealed that island Catholics sought opportunities “to grow in our faith,” she said. “We acknowledge that we are in need of Christ every day, that we are called to be his witnesses and we need to continue to be in relationship with him. It’s vital that we know who God is, and it is crucial that we share who God is with others.”

The bishop said the responses told him that “people in our local church are involved as stewards, who readily share their wisdom, insights, vision, and even critiques so that the whole Body of Christ can be built up locally.”

He said that as a result of this synodal process, he hopes the Diocese of Honolulu “can be a witness that Jesus is alive in his Body — Head and members interacting together — so that the Body can reach out to the world to touch and heal it with Christ’s mercy and love.”

It is Bishop Silva’s intention to have the Diocesan Pastoral Council review the report and offer suggestions for a plan of action for implementation.

 

The responses

Here are the results of the synodality process addressing the question, “How can all the members of the Catholic Church be more effective in proclaiming the living Jesus Christ to the world?” They were submitted online and collated by members of the Diocesan Pastoral Council.

CLERGY

• Actively support clergy especially within the parish level
• Ensure clergy receives opportunities to renew their faith
• Priests need to proclaim the word of God and not be afraid to tell people the truth
• Taking care of our clergy by supporting them and ensuring their faith is renewed

DIALOGUE

• Utilize the media to help live out the Catholic faith
• Continue to be a listening Church
• Provide more opportunities for people to express their concerns regarding the Catholic faith
• Utilize the media
• Listening, church needs to listen to what the laity needs; women have no place or say in how the church works; multiculturalism — Catholic Church needs to be more inclusive to ethnicity and race
• We need to use the new media to proclaim Christ and our Christian faith, countering individualism, materialism and godlessness
• We need to listen to each other

EUCHARIST / SACRAMENTS

• Strengthen and develop a reverence for the Real Presence of the Eucharist
• Encourage Mass attendance in person
• Receive our Sacraments
• Providing more opportunities for teaching Masses
• Encourage active participation at Mass and in ministry
• Extending the invitation to come back to Mass and to the Catholic Faith
• Encourage relatives, friends, and others to come back to the Church by inviting them back to Mass or church events
• Encouraging others to attend Mass and to learn about our faith
• Strengthen our faith in the Real Presence of the Eucharist
• Develop reverence for the Real Presence of the Eucharist
• Reciting the Rosary after Mass
• Priest should face the tabernacle during consecration
• Inviting priests from religious orders to celebrate Mass and inviting nuns/sisters to give a parish talk
• Educational explanation about the Mass liturgy
• Mass needs time for silent prayer after communion
• Seek small ways to make Mass more meditative
• The Eucharist, the broken body of Christ, needs to be at the center of our proclamation of Jesus Christ to the world.”

EVANGELIZATION

• Teaching others how to evangelize and share the message of Jesus
• Be an example of faith to everyone
• Seek the conversion of souls
• Bringing God’s love to everyone we meet especially in our communities
• Share our miracles and blessings with each other
• Be an example of faith to all
• We must be willing to evangelize!
• Be trained on how to effectively evangelize
• Seek the conversion and salvation of souls
• Need to share the beauty of our faith
• Divisions in the Church are a great obstacle in evangelizing
• Losing too many Catholics to other denominations due to lack of clarity regarding their faith

FAITH FORMATION

• Continuously learn and be formed in our Catholic faith utilizing the efforts of our Faith Formation team within the diocese, various Catholic media and resources, Faith Formation sessions locally within our parishes
• Promote and continue to teach from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Identify misconceptions people have about the faith so to better address issues and to bring about understanding
• Encourage ministry members to be active in learning about their faith
• Collaborate with other parishes regarding faith formation events like retreats, etc
• Teach and tell people the truth even when they do not want to hear it
• Identify what is misunderstood by the people regarding the Church
• Encourage children to go to Religious Education
• More faith formation opportunities
• Church needs to catechize both children and adults (adults need refreshers)

FAMILIES

• Encouraging parents and families to go to Mass together
• Emphasize the importance of family life and marriage within the church
• Offer family retreats
• Encourage parents to take their children to Mass
• Be a good example of a Catholic Christian to our families first

FURTHER DISCUSSION

• Encouraging Roman Catholic clergy at all levels to support the opening of the priesthood to all confirmed Roman Catholics, including women, married men, and openly-gay men
• Why do we need a Synod?

GIVING

• Be bold in our giving (donations)
• Encouraging people to be giving (donating) to their parish and diocese
• Be giving to the Church by donating to charitable causes

HOMILIES

• Homilies should be nourishing our soul
• Homilies need to nourish us

HOSPITALITY

• Focus on the ‘encounter’ process
• Be inclusive, welcoming and honest with people who are inquiring about our Catholic faith and with those who do not know about our Catholic faith
• Be more inclusive, be more welcoming to others
• Invite people to come back to Mass
• Be kind and caring to all in our community
• Be more open-minded to what is happening in your community
• Interacting with one another as creation who are created in the image and likeness of God
• Seeing Christ in other people
• Foster unity, build up communities and mend bridges

LATIN MASS

• Understanding difference between the Extraordinary Form and the Ordinary Form of Mass
• Expand the Traditional Latin Mass within the diocese
• Encouraging active participation in Traditional Latin Mass
• Preserve and expand the Traditional Latin Mass
• Novus Ordo Missae is impregnated with the Spirit of Protestantism
• Catholics don’t know their faith. Church needs to return to the Traditional Mass

LIVING THE FAITH

• Be bold in actively living our Catholic faith. There’s a need for everyone to confidently live out his or her Catholic faith
• Active participation in living our Catholic faith means to actively receive and take part in our sacraments
• It is important to know Jesus internally and establish a personal relationship with Him before sharing and proclaiming Him to others
• Must be living witnesses for Jesus
• Recognize the living Jesus who is not in the past but one who calls us today and every day
• Emphasize the importance of our Sacraments with our life and by the way we live
• Boldly and actively live out your Catholic faith
• Believing God’s love for each one of us
• Trusting in the power of God to do what He wills for us to do
• Establish and develop a personal relationship with Jesus before telling other people about Him (practice what we preach)
• Know Jesus Christ internally so you can effectively proclaim Christ to the world
• Prioritize your church activities over social events
• Continuously develop our faith and not stop learning about our faith after receiving your sacraments
• Live out the Gospel of Jesus with joy
• Practice discernment before deciding
• Remain faithful to God despite suffering. Faithfulness despite suffering and adversity allows you to see God more
• Church needs to reorient itself so that we can preach Christ crucified
• To love and forgive one another
• To be merciful
• Need to live out our baptismal call
• Live out your faith by Word and deed
• Living the Gospel by replicating the Servant Leader found in Christ
• Our primary focus must be to proclaim/speak about the living Jesus in present tense. Jesus was a historical figure, yes, but he is with us now. In Eucharist we know that Jesus is with us; in us; among us; active in us. And because of this, the Body of Christ is to act in ways that allow others to have meaningful, present-tense encounters with Christ
• Must live as living witness of Jesus

PARISHES

• Parish support needed for its ministries
• Actively participating in parish ministry

POLITICS

• Don’t let political issues hinder you from practicing your faith

PRAYER

• Knowledge of basic prayers
• Encourage praying in public as a normal routine
• Embrace the love of Jesus in prayer
• Encourage families to pray together and establish their prayer life
• Encouraging individuals to have a personal prayer life and to practice the process of discernment
• Increase prayerfulness in your daily life
• Seeking Christ in the Word, Eucharist and in intimate prayer
• Consecrate each country to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Sacred Heart of Jesus
• Laity need to learn how to pray with others

SCRIPTURE

• Learn and know Scripture
• Learn, study and know Scripture

SERVICE

• You alone cannot help everyone, but the Church is blessed with people who have varying gifts. Individuals need to know when to step aside and let someone else help
• The Body of Christ is made up of many with different gifts, different services. We need to find our way of helping the Body to be built up. Our witness and service must be very concrete

SEXUAL ABUSE

• Publicly praying for those who have been abused and for their abusers (“A yearly holy hour for the salvation of pedophile priests and the children they abused”)

SOCIAL MINISTRY

• Teach and learn the concept of kokua (giving and receiving help)
• Incorporate the local concept of kokua
• Develop and establish a better way to approach and communicate with the homeless/vulnerable in our communities
• Identifying and reaching out to those within our communities who are in need
• Need a better way to approach and communicate with the homeless in our community and at the front of our church doors
• Participate in social justice activities in your communities
• Organizing food drives and encouraging people to give or donate
• Emphasize the corporal works of mercy
• Reaching out to those in need

YOUTH

• Strengthen and further develop our young people in ministry
• It is crucial that we further develop our young people in ministry
• Encouraging young people to be active in formation ministries such as religious education, family ministry, children ministry, youth ministry, and/or young adult ministry
• Encouraging youth to serve at liturgies (Mass) and to serve within our community outreach programs
• Ensuring young persons’ knowledge and understanding of our Catholic faith
• Engage the youth in the celebration of the Eucharist and help them understand the liturgy
• Having more support for parish young adult ministry
• Build stronger children and youth programs
• Young people are finding ways to be a part of ministries but are afraid to commit
• Youth ministry must have top priority