Remarks to the Catholic Theological Society of America: Perspectives on the Aims of Synodality (13 June 2026)

Perspectives on the Aims of Synodality: Remarks to the Catholic Theological Society of America (13 June 2026)

+Daniel E. Flores, STD, Bishop of Brownsville

Introduction

Synodality as an ecclesial initiative shepherded by Pope Francis and continued by Pope Leo XIV has an initial track record upon which theologians can now reflect. The temptation is to say we have a great deal of data that can be analysed; but that would be a mis-stating on many levels. What is needed is an authentic theological “noticing” of what has manifested itself from the recent ecclesial experience of listening in the Holy Spirit, discernment, decision making and implementation, all within the communion of the Church. Embedded in this theological cognizance, this “noticing” is a constant reference to participation, communion, and mission.

What I propose to do this morning is to make modest gesture towards some things I’ve noticed while participating in the Synodal dynamic at the most local levels, and at regional, national, continental and universal synods in Rome presided over by the Successor of Peter. My remarks may at times seem peripheral, but synodality itself suggests that the peripheral is often more central than we might first think.

1. Why synodality at this time?

Pope Francis spoke often of this change of epoch we are living. I think he gave us a lot to think about in this key, but he also invited us to consider it as it continues to unfold. There are impulses of synodality deeply rooted in the tradition informing the pastoral vision of Vatican II. But the current prominence of the synodal concern of the Church also has to do with the age we ourselves are living and making. Theological self-awareness requires we attend to the fact that our age is living a free-fall in the human capacity to live in terms of an embodied and therefore inherently relational universe. Our children spend more time facing screens than playing in the backyard; their work is automized, school libraries and malls are largely empty; and even at sporting events, when they choose to attend them, young people often report anxiety about being around so many strangers. Communication between friends is a group-regulated engagement, media driven, and rejection from the group can be devastating. Games and enjoyment, learning and thinking, friendship and family are increasingly isolated and isolating experiences.

Whether we realize it or not our change of epoch is making us socially awkward, fearful of spontaneity, and severely limited in our exposure to real people living life in conditions different from our work and social circles. Thus the unborn, the poor, the immigrant, the elderly and the walking wounded are sidelined much more pervasively in this environment. They are more invisible than ever.

With this in mind, Synodality presents itself providentially as a voice crying in the wilderness of our age’s gradual acquiescence to a social retreat into ourselves. We ask people to gather and take the time to pray together. They gather with a small group of others they probably don’t know very well, and they listen and talk about the struggles and joys of trying to be a follower of Jesus in their daily life. Synodality, at its most basic, is specifically a purposeful humane encounter with others for what is aptly termed conversation in the Spirit. It does not aim initially to seek immediate resolutions, or winners and losers. If cultivated, it can build into a sense of discovery that controlling the conversation is not the principal aim of human communication; the joy of being and thinking together is.

Humanly, the being together is a bodily experience. That we might think a screen can habitually substitute for a local encounter of parishioners tells us how seductive disembodiment has become. From this perspective, local parish festivals may be the most evangelical / synodal thing we do right now. At least people across generations gather, talk, sing, eat, laugh and sweat in a largely outdoor setting. Very human, that.

Magnifica Humanitas is not a document particularly about Synodality. But it is about Synodality in a wider sense, and signals to us why synodality is providentially important right now: the Church has to witness to what authentic human relationships look like, in an age of artificial and superficial human relating. Thus, unless we deliberately work to humanize our relationships, the epoch will eclipse human conscience about responsibilities to one another. The encyclical is about this, and at root so is synodality.

2. Subsidiarity and Synodality

In MH nos 86-88, Pope Leo XIV makes specific connection between the principle of subsidiarity and the practice of synodality. The first term is drawn from the tradition of the Church’s Social Doctrine; the second term is at home in the field of ecclesiology. I think most of us have been aware of the analogous relation of the two terms. Yet, I think Pope Leo’s explication is particularly noteworthy. It strikes me that the framework he uses there can help address a question I have heard a lot from active participants of great good will in the Synodal processes at every level: “What exactly is synodality?

The question, and its near ubiquitous manifestations along the Synodal path, reflects in part that it is a new term to many people. It may not be new to theologians, but it is to the larger body of the baptized, the ones the synodal dynamic most desires to reach.

Pope Leo says in MH 87 that subsidiarity expressed as synodality “involves recognizing and supporting the faithful and intermediary ecclesial organizations as they carry out their responsibilities, valuing charisms and skills and avoiding any form of paternalism that suffocates evangelical freedom”. Here, he gives us a valuable link to the ensoiled roots of the term synodality. This can help us as we go forward, and keep us focused on what are authentic Synodal priorities.

Certainly, the task of promoting active participation in supporting the faithful and intermediary ecclesial organizations as they carry out their responsibilities rises to the surface, in my view, as the first priority. If local engagement in matters that matter most locally is lacking, then the reports and syntheses that run up the line do not contribute what is most vital. Here we are talking about parishioners taking the time to gather, listen, speak and pray together on a regular basis, for the sake of the mission, and to do this in communion with their pastors and bishops. Speaking frankly, a major threat to this hoped for flowering of Christian communities of authentic human relating is a programmatic paradigm: “Do this, and then this will happen”. The paradigm is missionarry conversion not programmatic efficiency. Conversion to Christ is by nature missionary, and it is moved by grace operating in the hearts of believers. And it takes prayer and time.

Thus the spirituality of Synodality is not a secondary formational concern. Cultivating lectio divina, a sacramental reading of Scripture and life, together with a recovery of the humanly graceful dynamism of gathering, of sharing common silence in the contemplative reception of the Word, sustains the fruitfulness of this renewal. It is a walking together in Christ, to Christ, as Augustine would say. (1)

When we prayerfully face our local patterns of service and mission, our local habits of communion and participation, the local church comes face to face with its own poverty. It is an evangelical poverty. Upon the health of this local root that encounters its poverty and invites the Lord into it, depends the realism of subsequent syntheses as the Synodal path moves through regions, episcopal conferences, continental consultations and more universal ecclesial assemblies.

The local root does not simply mean dioceses, parishes and missions. The intermediate institutions, in the Americas especially, include theological societies, hospital associations, charitable organizations, etc. It is fair to ask dioceses and parishes to examine their progress in integrating Synodal habits of graceful human relating into Church life. It is also legitimate to ask theological societies and other intermediate organizations to ask themselves the same kinds of questions. We must re-encounter the gracefully human space of participation and communion.

3. Participation

Participation in the New Testament is a word that flows into the tradition carrying metaphysical weight. I refer to the fact that we speak of graced participation in the mystery of Christ by virtue of Baptism and the work of the Holy Spirit. It also carries what we would call today “sociological weight”.

We say, for example, that by participating in the Sunday Eucharist we are made into active participants in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, by the Holy Spirit. We realize, though, that the de facto contemporary use of the term is on the sociological side. We ask “how many participated in the Mass” before we think to ask how are we enacting participation in Christ.

The two senses of the term are distinct yet related. We are a religion where the bodily presence of the Lord manifested in the act of handing himself over is the central sacramentum. Our bodily proximity to each other other while in proximity to him in his self-gift is basically where Christology and Ecclesiology converge. On this the tradition is unanimous.

But there is more. The historical assembly sacramentally signifies and makes present the members not present. This is true of the Church in a way it is not in other organized bodies. This is part of our being in Christ. This sense of the whole present in the body of the Church, because we are united to the head, is ubiquitous in Augustine’s commentaries on the Psalms, for example.(2) Wherever we gather by the Spirit in the Lord, within the communion of the Church, there is a physical embodiment that carries and signifies the larger whole.

From this perspective, the idea of participation in the assembly of the Church gathered has a numerical / statistical sense, and it has a metaphysical / sacramental sense. The latter sustains the viability of the former. We will never get everybody in one room. Yet the communion of those in the room with those not present is possible by the Spirit’s gift of communion in the one Body of Christ. This vantage point helps protect us from adopting a democratic paradigm, something Pope Francis warned us about.

4. Reports and Relations

The process of preparing synthetic reports from the local diocese takes time and gets much attention. We in our professionalized US environment are report-minded people. So I think we need to recognize our biases and inclinations in this regard. Our reports can become like the aim of the local process. Phrases at all levels like “we barely got our report in on time”, can suggest images of school essays written to prove we read the book. Nothing in the Synodal instructions from the Secretariat suggest we look at it that way; but our engrained habits influence us despite ourselves. It is true, deadlines can move the reluctant, but they often discourage the committed.

I think we must admit that emphases on submitting reports, and controversies about what national and continental reports contain can distract from emphasis on what is a prior concern: how robust is local engagement in matters that most matter locally? The quality of the relations built within the local church, the spiritual depth of renewed decision making processes, and (most of all) the quality of missionary conversion, are at the heart of ecclesial subsidiarity.

For this reason I have advised my own Synodal animation team in the Diocese of Brownsville that we wait to discern how to configure a diocesan assembly until we have a more realistic (ie synodal) assessment of our poverty, that is to say, where lack of active participation in the communion of the local church impedes the mission. Then we will know better how the assembly can both help evaluate our progress and plan our next steps. I do not see why it need be more complicated than that.

For my part, speaking as a local bishop, the narrative we trace should reflect the realism of the struggle and the hope for a local church more engaged at all levels to the mission. For us this means we have work to do to develop a Synodal relationality among the priests, humanizing the cultural, generational and theological diversities. This seems to me is both prior and simultaneous to a cohesive parochial participation to advance the local mission. Diocesan structures impacting both formation and decision-making need to be adapted to what better serves the mission. The mission involves varied activities, but it is always outwards from our self-preoccupations. And this is not programmatic, it is the manifestation of ongoing conversion.

5. Bishops and Assemblies

Intermediate structures of deciding are needed to help the Church decide well. But the local bishop cannot delegate everything. In the end he is responsible for putting into motion the Synodal pathways of wider participation, and for discerning at what level things are best decided in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity. Here, we have to pray for him.

The earlier mention of the theological senses of the term participation gives us a way also to think about the ministry of the bishop in the midst of the local Church. The bishop gathered with a local synodal assembly is representative more in a sacramental sense than in any mere statistical or political sense. The voices of many are represented in the witness of those who who participate. For the bishop to preside a synodal assembly in his diocese, he listens for the faith of his local church, expressed both in its sufferings and in its joys, its popular religiosity, its missionary and charitable preoccupations. He also teaches, discerns and with the help of many, decides.

It comes to be a question of particular relevance to the the bishop himself. How does he understand his role as embodiment of the faith, hope and charity, of the local Church? Charity is where the mission flows from. Hope is where the perseverance flows from; and faith is where the conversion flows from. His voice is literally formed by the quality of his listening coupled with the earnestness of his discerning what he hears; and the soul-searching of his decision making.

From a sacramental perspective, the bishop bears in his flesh the body of the whole local Church, such that if he were to participate in a provincial, national or universal synod, he speaks as one who is witness to, and carries within himself, the faith, hope and charity of his local church. That would seem to follow from Ignatius of Antioch, Augustine and other patristic witnesses. (3) It is witnessed to historically by the Synodal actions of the local churches on the road to Nicaea.

6. Subsidiarity and the solidarity of communion.

It appears to me, though it may be too early to say, that Pope Leo XIV is looking to establish ways for the Episcopal conferences to be drawn into a consultation with the pope regarding larger issues of pastoral priority and response. There are planned already two consultations with presidents of Episcopal conferences, one on synodal implementation and the other on Amoris laetitia. This approach highlights the inherent link between collegiality and synodality. Now then, for the bishops at the level of the national conferences of the world to come together to listen and discuss these things rests on the premise that the bishops present witness to the life and faith of the local churches represented (in a sacramental sense) in the conferences. This, in turn, rests on the quality of the synodal and human dynamic at the level of a local churches exercising a synodal communio that is expressed at the level of the national conferences. One could reasonably say that the more local process leading to this kind of consultative communio has in practice been uneven. But, I think the picture of the dynamic intended is clear. Similarly, the ecclesial assembly that will take place in October 2028 will be a different expression of the synod dynamic ordered to communio.

I would like to note particularly that the synodal dynamic outlined by Pope Francis and Pope Leo has introduced the consultative moment at the level of the continent. I am happy to say that Bishop Faubert and I have witnessed how this continental consultation is opening pathways of a synodal solidarity as a fruit of synodal subsidiarity.

The fact is that many other continents, such a as CELAM for example, have much longer experience of continental structures than we. We are just beginning to act and think our way to this in a North American context. Clearly, a synodal link at the level of the bishops of Canada and the United States is a gift aimed at making our communion more actual. Yet this is not sufficient in and of itself. Stronger ties between intermediate institutions present in each country must be cultivated. This would include religious life, universities, theologians, seminaries, charitable and missionary organizations, hospitals, and catechetical institutions, apostolic and charismatic movements.

We can only benefit from hearing and speaking in a synodal fashion with our sisters and brothers to the north, this improves the quality of the continental witness in North America. But the particular situation in the Americas requires further that we cultivate a deeper relationship with Mexico and the rest of Latin America, between the north and the south, and this for the sake of a coherent witness to the Gospel across national boundaries. I am also happy to say that there is recognition of this special relational bond between the North American churches and the reality represented by the churches represented in CELAM.

It is vital to the credibility of our common witness that we strengthen the continental solidarity between North and South, addressing, for example, the human dignity of migrants across the geographical, economic and political divides that stretch from the north to the tip of the south, Canada to Chile. Our ecclesial lives are distinct yet in some way, we must work to speak with a united and common voice about the same concerns affecting our peoples. We are all addressing in different ways a diversity of ecclesial patterns of life, influenced by different historical, political, economic and social contexts. But the witness is to the same struggle to protect human dignity and to give space for the voices of the vulnerable.

This in itself witnesses to the Church as a mystery that is not primarily identified along national boundaries and identities. The witness of the Americas is strengthened by our bonds of obedience and affection for the successor of Peter. Hence, these links, conversations, and witnesses to the faith heard and expressed by our people across the whole of the Americas is indispensable as we navigate a change of epoch. This too has a sacramental / representational signification in the light of Gaudium et spes, and Lumen gentium.

The mission involves testimony to the inherent goodness of Christ. The efficacy of this witness, its persuasiveness, depends upon the realism of our communion in faith and in hope, mercy and charity. It is a witness of steadfastness in defense of the poor, and of defenselessness in the face of opposition. I use the word defenseless – not unrelated to Pope Leo‘s use of disarmed – to signal a renunciation of the power of the world to accomplish our ends. For our ends are not our own. They are Christ’s. In this regard, my concluding reflection has to do with pneumatology and Christology, as we consider the ever present protagonists of the church’s life as we move through history.

7. Pneumatology, Christology and Mission

One of the consistent phrases I heard at all the levels of my participation in the Synodal process was “we are not talking about Jesus Christ enough”. Sometimes this was said in relation to remarks about being open to where the Holy Spirit leads us as a Church, sometimes not. But I detected in the mentions of this a deeper unease with the way we often talk about synodality. I think a deeper listening to the unease suggests a concern about a path forward unmoored in anything beyond our own reflections on Scripture and any emerging consensus. We tend to speak in abstractions, unconnected to flesh and blood. Now, I don’t think the guidance of Pope Francis, Pope Leo, or the Secretariat suggests that the discernment is governed by the abstracted consensus of the prayerfully dialogic assemblies. The documents speak of the role of the magisterium in guiding the appropriation of Scripture and the sensus fidelium. But the question presents itself: If the Holy Spirit is the principal protagonist of synodality, and if the People of God in the hierarchically constituted communion of the Church are the discerners of the voice of the Spirit (which is true), what is our regula discernendi?

The question about “where is Christ Jesus, Crucified and Risen from the dead?” in this process was in important ways the practical expression of a desire for a more explicit mooring in the the regula that is the person of Christ himself. This, in turn, prompts us to ask if our rhetoric has been perceived at times as a partial eclipse of the Christ by the Holy Spirit, and this because it opens up freer paths to innovation at the expense of authentic tradition. I am not saying this is the case, or that the Final Synodal Report does this. In fact I’m sure it does not, but I am saying many participants in the local synodal processes and many quasi-interested bystanders, have expressed concern about this along the way.

This should prompt theologians to renew the perception of the patristic age, especially the Cappodocians and Augustine, that the Trinitarian interventions in history follow a pedagogical order. The Spirit aims to illuminate our understanding of the sacramentum of Christ’s flesh. The patristic age and medieval doctors speak of this with great insistence. The Spirit’s guidance of the Church in history is at the same time a guidance more deeply into conformity to Christ.

The younger Ratzinger heard this strain echoed in Bonaventure’s Hexameron. For Bonaventure, the Church’s move toward the finality of history, towards the fullness of eternal life, is through greater conformity by grace to Jesus’ poverty and humility, engendered by a more profound grace of contemplation. Bonaventure saw in St Francis and St Dominic the enfleshed prophetic signs of the Church transformed by moving in history toward greater conformity to the Crucified. Ratzinger painstakingly points out that this is Bonaventure responding to the disorder caused by followers of Joachim of Fiore who saw a dawning age of the Spirit distinct from the current age of Christ with the Spirit.(4)

I’ll not go further into this now. If you are interested in the topic you know where to look. My point is that the issue of ecclesial movement forward and Christological / Pneumatological faith of the Church go together. The Spirit leads us to deeper apprehension of Christ in poverty, humility and defenselessness.

I do not think our people can apprehend an ecclesial dynamism with the Holy Spirit as principal protagonist without at the same time looking upon Christ as principal agent and visible manifestation of where the Spirit leads. In Christ are inexhaustible depths, by the Spirit we are led and encountered by these depths. The guidance of Word and Spirit are literally grasped, physically and in spiritual understanding, in the person of Christ and through his body. To insist on this is to refuse to try to transcend the body for the sake of the Spirit. The Body of Christ is the magnum Sacramentum, in the sense of the term as used by St Leo the Great. (5) The Spirit flows from the mysterium, and leads us back to it, in the poverty of his resurrected flesh. Yet always deeper, always more. Always, and still with us, in his wounded flesh. In this conformity to Christ the Father is glorified.

This leads me back to the issue of authentic human relations, with which I began. So I’ll stop here.

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1. Augustine, Sermo 141,4: Filius Dei qui semper in Patre veritas et vita est, assumendo hominem factus est via. Ambula per hominem, et pervenis ad Deum. Per ipsum vadis, ad ipsum vadis.

2. Augustine on Psalm 60: Hæc ergo Christi posséssio, hæc Christi heréditas, hoc Christi corpus, hæc una Christi Ecclésia, hæc únitas, quæ nos sumus, clamat a fínibus terræ.

3. Augustine, Tract 124 on John, (focusing on the part after the brackets on the primacy of Peter. [Hoc agit Ecclésia spe beáta in hac vita ærumnósa], cuius Ecclésiæ Petrus apóstolus, propter apostolátus sui primátum, gerébat figuráta generalitáte persónam.For Augustine the figure of Peter applies to the other apostles and their successors.

4. JOSEPH RATZINGER La teología de la historia de san Buenaventura, Título original Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura © Verlag Schnell & Steiner GmbH, Regensburg © 2004 Ediciones Encuentro, S.A. Segunda edición septiembre de 2010 Traducción Juan Daniel Alcorlo / Rafael Sanz OFM. Eg p 155: Actualmente, la Orden de los franciscanos y la de los dominicos están juntas en el umbral del tiempo nuevo, que ellas preparan sin poderlo alcanzar personalmente. Pero cuando llegue este tiempo será un tiempo de la contemplatio, un tiempo de la plena comprensión de la Escritura y, por eso mismo, un tiempo del Espíritu Santo, que introduce en toda la verdad de Jesucristo.

5. For example, Leo the Great, Ep 31,3: De hac autem participatióne mirábili sacraméntum nobis regeneratiónis illúxit, ut per ipsum Spíritum, per quem Christum et concéptus est et natus, étiam nos spiritáli rursus orígine nascerémur.

*Citations of Augustine from S. AURELII AUGUSTINI OPERA OMNIA: PATROLOGIAE LATINA, found in https://www.augustinus.it/latino/index.htm.

Leo the Great, Letters, in Leo I●MED●Epistolae●(Patrologia latina, vol. 54. J. P. Migne, ed. Parisiis: excudebat Migne, 1846): https://artflsrv04.uchicago.edu/philologic4.7/PLD/navigate/6357/2?byte=579499&byte=579599.