Pope Francis dropped the proposal out of the blue, really, last October, although he had been hinting at the notion for years.

We have a date and place, critical themes, an ample handbook and supporting documents to go with the formal announcement. October 2023 in Rome is fixed in the calendar.

The whole Church is to contribute. That is why it has been billed as the largest consultation process in history.

Growing the synodal parish

But can we have a synodal Church if we don't start the process of growing the synodal parish?

There is no rush to perfect the model instantly because we are on a journey — together. But this journey needs many travellers and a commitment to go the distance.

No need for blinding light but conversion is definitely involved.

We are familiar with the idea of a pilgrim people journeying to their God and the Promised Land. We have just journeyed with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the birth of our Savior. We have travelled with the Wise men from the East.

We are now called to embark on, arguably, the most significant journey in the history of the Church — since that enabling birth. The challenges of the Reformation pale into insignificance.

We are Church

As we are the Church, the People of God, we have the highest duty to renew the Sacrament of the Church that Jesus gave us.

The Church is not the brick or stone building we have become comfortable in; it is not over there but right here, where we are.

That means the change Pope Francis contemplates requires us to change.

We know that we can no longer persist in the old paradigm of comfort from inside. The public square requires us, individually and collectively, to take the Lord's message to the people and to act differently.

There is the clearest imperative to start the process. There are three key elements of synodality — Communion, Participation and Mission. If they are to have real bite we need to begin at the local level.

We, as a local parish, are a microcosm of the Church. No better place to start.

Discernment for the Synod meeting will be enlivened by actual experience of existential parish practice.

As we embrace the pope's call to become a Church that acts differently (not a new Church) there is no reason for delay.

The first key element — Communion

How might we start - locally?

If communion means conversations that lead to a conversion to Christ and commitment to active participation in the mission given by Christ, we can do that better. There is nothing new here -- in substance — but there is ample room for radical improvement.

Francis explained that in detail more than eight years ago in Evangelii Gaudium, the apostolic exhortation from 2013.

Improvement is the nature of Christian life. If we add to the mix recognition that we are now living in a secular society where religion has an optional place there is a crying need for missionary discipleship to take on a new dimension.

The second key element - Participation
Equally, the idea of the People of God talking with one another and importantly listening to one another is not new.

But it must now be different, and the listening must be genuinely active - at all levels and on all subjects.

The third key element - Mission

The communion that exists for a common purpose will enable the mission to flow - ever more smoothly.

Missionary discipleship must be the impulse for the whole Church as Francis invites us. The inseparable bond between our faith and the poor must remain axiomatic (EG 48).

On this journey, it is essential that we abandon any vestige of clericalism -on the part of clerics and the baptized faithful. That's easier said than done, given our historical attachment to monarchical structure, class, power and position.

Hopefully, the concept of collaboration in all parish affairs will be recognized and practiced uniformly.

"Father" is no longer expected to approve the replacement of failed light globes, let alone actually undertake the replacement task.

The parish council or leadership group is elected or appointed after consultation. In its operations, it will act collaboratively and consult widely.

Its role will be welcomed.

The engagement between the parish council and the pastor will be a model of collaboration. The mutual role of service will be embraced.

Parish tasks will be shared as widely as possible and not held tightly by a few.

The end of anonymity

Pope Francis says communion describes the very nature and mystery of the Church. That implies parish members will know more than a handful of parishioners' names.

There's no room for anonymous arrival, private prayer and unchallenged departure under the guise of celebrating the Eucharist.

All will arrive at church or place of worship in communion, greet each other warmly and worship in communion.

• Full, active participation will be transformative because of the connection of a people no longer present as individuals but intimately linked in the Paschal Mystery.
• The Word of God will be broken open to participants who increasingly appreciate the detail of the scriptural message of redemption and companionship, a familiarity too long neglected.
• The memorial of the Last Supper and Calvary will offer an impact like never before as we gather in communion at the foot of the cross.
• The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ will be received in communion for the ultimate earthly encounter with the Lord and the fuel of the mission to follow.
• The dismissal that concludes the formal celebration of Eucharist will more clearly signal the beginning of the missionary work of Christ, as parishioners depart in communion to "put out into the deep".

Parish groups will be open, collaborative and reflect the sense of communion that underpins the synodal parish. Territorialism, power, "we have always done it this way", anonymity and control must be abandoned.

Parish activities will reflect the new order - in practice not just in theory.

We are talking about deep change and we know most change is anathema!

There are many potholes, loose rock and byways to encounter on this journey. The change cannot happen overnight. But let's make a start.

Let's grow synodal parishes for a synodal Church.

• Justin Stanwix is a deacon at St Mary's Star of the Sea Parish, Milton in the Diocese of Wollongong (Australia).
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

He explained to Mélinée Le Priol how he embraced a more collaborative view of ministry and being Church through the parish missions carried out by visiting religious order priests.

La Croix: Your parish extends over 20 towns and villages. What does the mission consist of in these rural areas?

Jean-Luc Gebelin: There are 40 kilometres between the two most distant towns of my parish! The main obstacle to Church life here is fragmentation, dispersion.

In a world where being a believer is no longer a given, Christians need to come together to live out their faith.

This observation was one of the starting points for the popular itinerant missions that took place here beginning in the 1980s, at the initiative of the former bishop of Nîmes, Mgr. Jean Cadilhac.

These missions, entrusted to the Lazarists [also known as the Vincentians], provided a powerful moment for the Church in the villages, bringing people together.

Personally, I took part in the missions in the different parishes where I was parish priest almost continuously from 1999 until 2020, before the first lockdown…

How are they going?

I will speak in the past tense because, unfortunately, to my knowledge, there are no more today due to a lack of succession among the Lazarists.

In the past, a missionary team of a few Lazarists would come and spend three weeks in a group of two to four villages.

The parish priest and the laity also took part in the mission, which mixed different states of life. During these three weeks, we all worked at the same task.

But once this bond was created between the people, and even once the Lazarists left, I said to myself that we had to continue!

Every year in our villages, for about fifteen years, we organized events with the laity. It was a way to extend the three weeks of the initial mission.

In any case, we had a lot to learn from the Lazarists and their missionary charism, with this capacity to always go elsewhere, without settling down too much.

What was the issue? Mobilizing beyond the parish circle, by reaching people who are sometimes far from the Church?

Yes. A team of volunteers went to all the houses in the few villages that hosted the mission, to bring the invitation to the residents. This invitation took the form of a leaflet detailing the events of the mission (celebrations, shows, walks, Bible stories, etc.).

To do this, we had to overcome a lot of reticence because it requires involvement to ring the doorbell of your neighbours while presenting yourself as Catholic!

It was not easy for me either...

I had never done this before, going to strangers' homes to invite them to Church events.

You wonder how you will be received. But the reception was almost always favourable. People were touched that we were interested in them.

This is perhaps what we Catholics miss the most: being aware that, as long as we are not intransigent, people are happy to meet us.

In what way were you, the laity and the Lazarists "co-responsible" in the mission?

We were above all responsible for a very concrete project!

Choosing activities, designing a poster, reserving a room with the town hall. Organizing the mission called on the skills of each one of us, on our knowledge of the territory, on our close relationships, etc.

In the various shows we put on, on the Passion or on the Emmaus witnesses, there were up to forty of us on stage!

For each mission, we also wrote a prayer to distribute to the people with the invitation leaflet. Each person would come up with his or her own ideas and we would share them.

I reread some of these prayers years later and was moved to see that they were partly answered.

What fruits did these missions bear?

We remain fragile, and there are not many more of us in church on Sundays. But I am convinced that if we still exist today, it is because of that.

Most of the current members of the pastoral animation team in my parish have been involved in missions.

That says a lot about how they have welded our community together and pushed Christians to get involved. We have experienced that doing something together is possible.

So even though we can see the metamorphosis of society and of the Church, we say to ourselves that there are still resources and that not everything has been exploited. We have a great future ahead of us.

Moreover, one of the fruits of these missions are the "Gospel Houses", which are spreading today in our diocese of Nîmes, allowing people to meet around the Word of God.

Why do you think the complementarity between priests and laity is so central to the missionary dynamic?

Simply because one cannot do a mission alone!

The mission - just as, more broadly, the Church - is a collective work.

In the Gospels, Jesus much more often addresses his apostles in the plural rather than the singular. And he asks them to pray by saying "our father," not "my father".

Carrying the pastoral load together is so much easier! On my own, there are many things I would not do. For the mission, we must pool our strengths and our weaknesses.

I insist on the weaknesses because otherwise we are tempted to believe we are all-powerful, and that cannot work.

As a priest, you don't have a position of authority?

No. I always start from the principle that we have to do it together. If you want people to be involved, then you have to get involved yourself.

In the missions, I have always remained at the side of the parishioners, for example by playing a role in the shows, just like the others.

The mission is also for us priests: we need it a lot! It stimulated me a lot.

In any case, I like working in a team. On my own, it drags, I don't know where I'm going.

In a team, the vision is broader and, sometimes, light breaks out. Succeeding together brings me a lot of joy.

We learn to receive from each other, we realize that we do not own things. The diversity of our talents makes something happen that was not planned.

In your opinion, what will be the proper place of the priest in a more synodal Church?

It is clear that for the future of the Church, priests alone will not be able to do anything.

I find that lay people help us to get out of our sterile oppositions between priests of different sensibilities: they help us to go further.

For me, being a priest means above all being a servant of dialogue between people.

• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

At first, the document evokes an expansive vision of parish transformation by citing Pope Francis' call for "creativity" in "seeking how best to proclaim the Gospel" and that "the Church, and also the Code of Canon Law, gives us innumerable possibilities, much freedom to seek these things."

Then the instruction tantalizes reform-minded Catholics by saying, "Parish communities will find herein a call to go out of themselves, offering instruments of reform, even structural, in a spirit of communion and collaboration … for the proclamation of the Gospel."

But I find no structural instruments of reform here.

With one notable exception, the instruction is essentially "all hat and no cattle" as my Texas friends like to say.

The Congregation for the Clergy's instruction restates (somewhat defensively) long-standing church rules that mandate a male-celibate-priest-centric and priest-controlled vision of parish community.

This vision is already moribund in both the global north and the global south because — news flash — there are too few priests to serve the world's expanding Catholic population.

In Germany, the instruction was interpreted as an effort to stop moves by German bishops to encourage both priest and lay leadership in consolidating parishes and providing pastoral care. One German canon lawyer succinctly said the instruction "answers today's questions with yesterday's answers."

In a pastoral letter to his Magdeburg Diocese, German Bishop Gerhard Feige wrote, "I won't let myself be paralyzed and blocked by their restrictive orders, since much in it is quite unrealistic — especially with regard to our extreme diaspora situation, which they evidently cannot imagine — and since no positive solutions are indicated in view of the mounting lack of priests."

Feige also fears Rome's instruction will turn lay Catholics away from working for the church at all.

His concern was echoed by German Cardinal Walter Kasper, who, while defending the instruction, also said it would have benefited from "more positive, encouraging and appreciative language" about lay leadership. Kasper tactfully suggested the world's bishops' conferences should have been consulted before the document was issued.

The prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, has invited German bishops to Rome to discuss the issues. I hope our German brothers can get through to presumably well-intentioned Vatican officials who seem to have little understanding of the realities of parish life in a time of fewer priests.

A caveat — there is one big positive in this document: It gives laypeople significantly more leverage in canonical appeals to preserve their parish communities.

For 14 years, I have worked closely with FutureChurch's Save Our Parish Community initiative to support countless ordinary Catholics accessing their canonical right to appeal the closure (and eventual sale) of their vital, solvent parishes and churches.

Too many bishops were (and are to this day) treating parish communities like Starbucks franchises, rather than the body of Christ that they are called to shepherd — not to sell. Continue reading

"I simply do not have anyone suitable to appoint as Parish Priest", the Archbishop of Wellington told a 400 strong crowd, meeting at the Uniting Church, Dr Taylor Tce in Johnsonville.

The Archbishop apologised for the quality of communication about the decision, telling the at-times vocal crowd the communication was not as good as he had wanted.

Archbishop Dew dismissed criticism that he dumped the decision on the parish just two weeks before Christmas, when no one would notice.

He said he had learned only very late in the year of Fr Fitzgibbon's intention to retire.

The Cardinal also said his prior commitments in Rome and standing in for Bishop Dunn at the recent summit on sexual abuse meant it was not possible to meet beforehand.

Cardinal Dew informed the meeting of a report he received earlier in 2018 indicating a possible far-reaching way forward for the St Francis of Assisi Parish, but he understood the parish had not accepted the plan.

The optimistic Archbishop said new circumstances meant resurrecting that plan, at least as a starting point.

Describing the new parish team as "adventurous, creative people with initiative to lead the parish in response to community needs", he thought that, along with the support of the Parish Administrator Fr Peter Roe SM, the St Francis of Assisi Parish "had an even better deal".

Cardinal Dew noted that lay-led parishes are not new.

"20 years ago, when Cardinal Williams was Archbishop, the Archdiocesan Synod approved lay-led parish leaders when the priest is unavailable," he told the meeting.

Moving the discussion forward from a lack of priests to modern day mission, Cardinal Dew referred to a 100-year-old document written by Pope Benedict XV.

"If we are not on mission we are not being Catholic', the pope wrote.

Cardinal Dew reinforced the comment by saying that of nature the Church is missionary.

"The mission is not about our needs but the needs of others.

"A church that focuses on itself becomes self-referential", he said.

Cardinal Dew highlighted Vatican II, saying that just as Christians are all called to holiness, we are all called to mission.

Society of Mary involvement

Provincial of the Society of Mary, Fr David Kennerley SM, told the meeting that the Society is interested in this project because it is leading towards something new.

"Supporting a church coming to birth is something that suits us," he said.

Fr Kennerley said the Marists came to New Zealand having been called by laity who had already established the New Zealand Church.

"We are not the cavalry. We are also not here for the long haul," he warned.

He said the Society's offer, through Fr Peter Roe, is for three years and to work collaboratively with the new parish team in order to call forth a church that is truly lay and truly missionary.

Questions answered

Responding to questions about getting help from overseas, Cardinal Dew said he's been talking with Cardinal Tagle for eight years about supplying priests but Cardinal Tagle says the needs in the Philippines are very great.

Cardinal Dew also indicated that new immigration constraints are proving problematic.

Asked what the Church was doing to get vocations, Cardinal Dew said the Archdiocese had a vocations committee and was doing what it could.

He commented that he did not have any sons and observed if the people want priestly vocations priestly vocations needed to be fostered in families.

Cardinal Dew said the topic of married priests was on the agenda in Rome, and while it takes time, he remains hopeful the issue will come up again later in the year.

Meanwhile, the cardinal encouraged the parish to think of what it can do itself.

"The Church is no longer priest-centred, the priest doesn't have to do everything.

"The question for each of us is what contribution can I make?"

Questioned on how he will judge the success of this new team leadership model, the Cardinal was quick to respond, "As I do any activity of the Archdiocese".

"Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, trustfulness and self-control are the fruits of the Holy Spirit and if the parish if full of people like this we can say the parish is a success."

Archdiocesan priest statistics: 8 priests in parishes, aged 70 - 90. 16 priests in parishes, aged 50-60. 10 priests in parishes, aged 30 - 49, however of these 10, 7 are on loan and can return at any point.

Archdiocesan lay pastoral worker statistics: 29 graduates. 12 in active ministry (Parish 5, Prison 1, Hospital 3, Ethnic 1, Archdiocesan employees 2). 8 not in formal ministry. 9 retired.