I suspect many of us have had difficulty navigating a roundabout in city traffic. You may go round and round in the circle, unable to exit because you don’t know how to get out. We may find that taking place in our spiritual lives as well, when we feel like we are going around in circles.
As the Church has entered into the process of synodality, I believe many in Church leadership have been caught in a type of ecclesial roundabout. This metaphor came to me during a pilgrimage to Rome, a city full of roundabouts, during the first week of the October 2024 session of the Synod. But the experience also gave me hope that we can navigate our way out of that roundabout.
The pilgrimage was co-sponsored by Discerning Deacons and the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA). Discerning Deacons is a project in fidelity with the Catholic Church engaging in the active discernment of our Church about women and the diaconate with a goal of witnessing to the diaconal ministry of women and renewing the diaconate for our times. CEAMA represents all people of God in the Amazon with the goal of making and implementing a pastoral plan for the Church in the Amazon.
My involvement in Discerning Deacons came about because I serve in the only parish in my Diocese of Toledo which has a Pastoral Leader who is a woman. Sr. Virginia Welsh is responsible to our bishop for the administration and life of our parish. I serve as Parish Chaplain and Presbyteral Moderator by a provision in Canon Law for parishes who do not have a priest as the Pastor or Administrator.
Over my 46 years of priesthood, I have seen many faithful and competent women who have served the Church in parishes and in the diocese. More recently, I’ve experienced the gifts of younger Catholic women who’ve served in campus ministry, religious formation and other ministries and who could be capable preachers of the Word. The women I’ve encountered in my engagement with Discerning Deacons are a great example of this ministry.
The pilgrimage group consisted of 55 men and women, though the women far outnumbered the men. I was one of three priests, and there was one deacon who participated along with his wife. We came from diverse backgrounds and ranged in age from 21 to 80. Though the majority were from the United States, we also had pilgrims from Canada, Australia, Brazil and Bolivia. Several had Spanish or Portuguese as their first language.
Our purpose for this pilgrimage was not to come to “lobby” or to protest. Rather, we came to pray for the synod and its members, to support the synodal process and to continue the discernment of the Church, particularly in regard to the role of women in the Church. We took part in the Opening Mass of the Synod in St. Peter’s Square. The following day we conducted a prayer service in honor of St. Phoebe, who delivered Paul’s letter to the Romans from her home Church in Cenchrae, Greece.
We also presented a symposium on integral ecology, women in ministry and synodality. Peruvian Cardinal Baretto, who is president of CEAMA and a member of the current Synod Assembly, gave an introduction and four of our women pilgrims gave witnesses of from the environmental frontlines where they minister among indigenous peoples in the Amazon, Australia, Canada and rural West Virginia.
But one of the most powerful witness talks took place the next day. We celebrated Mass in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Jessica Morel serves as a military chaplain, and she offered a reflection. It’s well-known that the military has a great shortage of Catholic chaplains. However, because she is not an ordained Catholic minister, Jessica must serve as a non-denominational chaplain. This limits the ministry she can give to our Catholic brothers and sisters in the military. If she were an ordained permanent deacon, she could do much more.
Over the course of various events we had the opportunity to encounter a number of synod delegates. We promised to pray for them, and if they were willing, we often prayed with them for their intentions. Many asked for the courage to speak honestly during the synod process.
The most significant encounter I had with a delegate came after the rosary Pope Francis led at St. Mary Major for peace in Lebanon. He was a young deacon from Syria. He asked for prayers for his own country where Christians face constant threats. I recalled an experience from my past travels looking into his country from behind a fence. That put all our challenges in a sharp perspective for me.
Our entire experience of prayer, listening and witness reinforced several things for me. Perhaps the most important is that I must take the experience of women in the Catholic Church seriously. I realize that, as a priest and a man, I have a privileged position in the Church with a stable position. Most women, however, have little stability. A change of a pastor or a bishop could put their ministry and livelihood in jeopardy. There needs to be guardrails to protect them.
It also reinforced the importance of listening, particularly using the synodal process of conversations in the Spirit. We engaged in this conversation, and it should be a model for the entire Church. Until we learn to listen to each other without preconceptions, we will get nowhere. And that makes it harder for the work of the Holy Spirit to bear fruit.
Finally, it has convinced me that women must have a formal role in the decision making of the Church, as well as more pathways for authorized ministry. Whether or not women are admitted to sacramental diaconate (and I believe they should), there should be some provision for qualified women to preach at Mass. We need the gifts of over half of our Catholic believers.
That week in October I personally experienced the gifts of over forty of those women, and each is representative of many more. A number of them would be open to a call to serve as deacons if offered to them. They are faithful women and they are not bitter. I would not want to be affiliated with such a group.
They are also reasonably patient, but that patience is not eternal. They do not want to be stuck in an ecclesial roundabout forever. But Pope Francis—the same man who seemed to preclude ordination of deacons for women in a television interview—also met for prayer in private audience with a small number of women in ministry from our group the day before our formal pilgrimage began. The discernment continues, as the document from the Synod affirmed.
Sometimes I am frustrated with Church leadership going in circles. For example, our US bishops have not yet moved to approve guidelines for instituting women as acolytes and lectors and men and women as catechists. And this is two years after Pope Francis authorized these ministries and opened them to women.
But I’m confident that won’t last forever. Church leadership can delay the work of the Holy Spirit, but it cannot kill it. My experience of this week in Rome tells me that the Holy Spirit will do her work, for it was being done in the women around me. We will find our way out of the roundabout on the road to a renewed Church.