By Úrsula Longi.
Focolarina, consecrated laywoman of the Focolare Movement (Work of Mary) and member of the International Academy of Catholic Leaders
The Synodal Process ‘For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, mission’ has just begun. Three pillars, according to the Pope, which for every baptized person represent an enormous challenge and a great opportunity. I dare to reread his message to the Roman diocese, rethinking his words from the perspective of political leadership.
The Synodal Process seeks to set in motion a dynamic of mutual listening, at all levels of the Church, involving all the people of God. We know of the efforts of some local churches to reach “the grassroots” and promote listening meetings in all parishes, with associations and movements. In some dioceses, the Church has also opened itself to dialogue with the city and its multiple actors.
Living synodality from politics
Dynamic of listening: “Talking to each other and listening to each other,” with frankness, with serenity. If this dynamic will do much good to the Church, how much good could it also do to society if Catholics who have felt the political vocation and have responded to it, could create and recreate spaces to talk and listen to each other, from their different experiences and expectations. “It is about – together – listening to the Holy Spirit,” says Pope Francis to the Church in synodal dynamism. An unavoidable urgency for those who commit themselves to public affairs.
“Synodality expresses the nature of the Church, its form, its style, its mission.” Is not this “walking together” the call of the Christian in politics? A walking together for the good of all and with all, which demands a redeemed gaze that does not see adversaries but brothers, that knows how to distinguish the seeds of the Divine Word in the intuitions of others and their parties, that believes in the patient work of the artisan of dialogue and peace.
Keys to understanding synodality
In this walking together “everyone is a protagonist,” says the Pope, and it is necessary to consider ministries as authentic services. And to remember that authority arises from “listening to the voice of God and of the people” to whom the Catholic in politics must lend his “service of charity and faith.”
It strikes me that among the key words that the Pope indicates are inner restlessness and crisis. Every person with responsibilities towards others knows them well, suffers them, endures them. But I do not know how many manage to see inner restlessness and crisis as a “key” in their processes.
Inner restlessness is born, says Pope Francis, “from one’s own faith and invites one to consider what is the best that can be done, what should be maintained or changed.” Undoubtedly he is referring to the Church, but I believe that when reading it, it resonates in our own daily lives.
Also, what Pope Francis says, referring to Peter and Paul, can very well be applied to every baptized person and in a particular way to those who provide a direct service to the common good, through a political or public administration position. We must be people “capable of rethinking themselves in relation to what happens, witnesses of an impulse that puts them in crisis (…), that pushes them to dare, to question, to reconsider, to make mistakes and to learn from them, above all to hope despite the difficulties. They are disciples of the Holy Spirit, who makes them discover the geography of divine salvation, opening doors and windows, tearing down walls, breaking chains, freeing borders. Then it may be necessary to leave, change direction, overcome the convictions that hold us back and prevent us from moving forward and walking together.”
A whole program of action: to leave, to change direction, to overcome the convictions that hold us back and prevent us from moving forward and… to walk together.
Reference is made to the address of the Holy Father Francis to the faithful of the Diocese of Rome, Saturday, September 18, 2021.