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Jesuit Father Myron J. Pereira, based in Mumbai, has spent more than five decades as an academic, journalist, editor and writer of fiction. He contributes regularly to UCA News on religious and socio-cultural topics.
Is there a future for a more democratic Church?
Perhaps the question should be rephrased: does a synodal Church have a future?
Published:
April 18, 2023 03:58 AM GMT

Updated:
April 18, 2023 04:20 AM GMT

There’s a difference between democracy and synodality — and it is crucial

Most of us have heard the comment, usually given cynically to clinch a losing argument, “After all, the Church is not a democracy!” 

Of course, the Church wasn’t a democracy in the days before Pope Francis and even more; it wasn’t so for centuries either.

In fact around the turn of the 19th century, some popes had even condemned democracy as a “modern American fad,” and prided themselves on “being infallible.”

The Church was a monarchy, or a celibate oligarchy, if you will, in which the “rule of the fathers” (patriarchy) was dominant, iron-clad and irrefutable.

How Francis changed the image of the Church

But much, very much has changed since that “man from a far country” came to Rome in 2013, and took the name of Francis, after the poor man of Assisi and the patron of ecological concern.

Over the last ten years, Pope Francis has changed very little of Catholic doctrine. He is stubbornly, irritatingly orthodox.

But he has changed everything with regard to how the Church is perceived.

By continuous and courageous action, he has exemplified mercy, forgiveness and understanding. He “smells of the sheep” (in that inimitable phrase of his), has gone out to the margins, and has promoted the inclusivity and dignity of women in a Church which had always treated them condescendingly as unpaid labor.

And most of all, he has encouraged diversity of opinion and welcomed dissent.

What democracy gave us?

We are all — or most of us, anyway — citizens of democratic states. And so popular is this form of government that even iron-fisted dictatorships like to pretend that they are “People’s Democratic Republics” in name, if not in reality.

Practically speaking, this means we vote for our governments every four or five years; we voice our opinions publicly and freely; we can move about within or outside the country; and we like to think we have equal access to education, jobs, and livelihood.

Do we have the same freedom within the Church?

Frankly, until very recently, no.

The Reformation (1521- 1648) was the watershed event that changed the Christian Church into the Roman Catholic Church.

Henceforward loyalty and obedience to Rome — orthodoxy — became the watchword for future generations of Catholics. And in the vanguard were the Jesuits, who through their writings, their schools, their missions and the superior quality of their lives, influenced four centuries of Catholic life across the world.

Confronting global change

But the world as we’ve known it was changing.

The advent of industrialization across Europe and America created vast displacement of peoples, and migration, until then a small domestic problem, assumed global proportions. It contributed to the extinction of several indigenous populations, to indentured labor in several colonies, and to the festering slums in almost every major city.

Truly did Pope Leo XIII bemoan, “The tragedy of the 19th century was the Church’s loss of the working classes.”

There were other losses. Until the political emancipation of the colonies of Asia and Africa, first begun with India (1947), the Catholic Church in these countries was largely a Roman template.

It would take more than half a century after Vatican II (1962-65) to change the feudal mentality that obedience to Rome entailed.

For the Catholic Church in the global South — unlike its Protestant peers — has still to shake off the shackles of home-grown feudalism, as seen for decades in its treatment of Dalits, tribals and women.

If the past is any guide Catholic Indians would prefer to keep their “social distance” from other Catholics not of the same skin color or social class.

How synodality shapes the Church

This is why the mantra (keyword) of Pope Francis — synodality — is both innovative and challenging.

What form and shape will it take in determining the future of the Church in this country?

Firstly, synodality will not be led by priests and bishops, but by the hierarchy together with the laity: women, Dalits, and tribal people. These three groups have been explicitly mentioned because though the Church is largely composed of them, they are absent from most areas of decision-making.

Discrimination against women and Dalits is rife. In a synodal church, this must change.

Next, if “dialogue is the new way of being church,” as Pope Paul VI said long ago, a synodal Church must be as inclusive as possible.

Hitherto, Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox have been indifferent to each other, and all three have looked down on the Pentecostals. A change of attitude is overdue.

The recent Pew survey on religious attitudes in India (2021) revealed the hostility of the major religions to any change of faith. This is typical of static and fundamentalist religion, and this in fact is what religions in this country have become — rigid and superstitious, and obsessed only about what not to eat, drink and wear.

A synodal approach will welcome “the dialogue of life and work,” where Catholics join others in educating and agitating for matters of justice and human rights.  But careful! The synodal path may become a slippery slope uphill.

Finally, to have any relevance in the world of today, synodality must embrace the most pressing issue of our times — climate change and environmental disaster.

If communion and participation are the working methods for this new church, then its most urgent mission is saving our earth from the few whose rapacious greed will destroy the planet.

Democracy versus synodality

Is a synodal Church the same as a democratic Church? There are similarities, obviously.

The emphasis on participation for one. Both democratic governments and the Church of yesteryear believe in select representatives, though neither can control the corruption of members of parliament or the sexual scandals of the hierarchy. Whence today, the insistence on the participation of all.

And then again, all democracies lobby for power, whereas governance in the Church — no matter how unsavory its past may have been — is a matter of service, service guided by the Spirit.

When arrogance replaces humble service, corruption begins. Thus it was in the past:  the Church clamped down on freedom because it was intoxicated with religious power and intolerant of other views.

Does a more democratic Church have a future, we asked at the start of this essay. Perhaps the question should be rephrased: does a synodal Church have a future?

If this means sharing in the responsibilities of governance and service, if this means an outreach in dialogue to those on the margins if this means a template of peace and mercy for a violent and fractious world — why then, yes, a synodal Church is meant to become what its Lord and Master always wanted it to be — “a light to the world, a city on a hilltop” (Matt 5.14ff)

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

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1 Comments on this Story
CHHOTEBHAI
Rev D. S. Amalorpavadas, a great champion of the laity had said "The Church is more than a democracy it is a community ". Yes Pope Francis is racing against time to implement synodality but he is being stonewalled by a deeply entrenched clericalism. Just as Vatican II has been given a decent burial so will synodality, which is based on Vatican II ecclesiology.
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UCA News Catholic Dioceses in Asia
UCA News Catholic Dioceses in Asia