Synod 2016 - Limerick's Synod Delegates gather for their first meeting 15th November 2014

2016 Limerick Diocesan Synod can turn challenges ahead into opportunities – inaugural gathering of delegates hears

The Limerick Diocesan Synod and the 18month build-up to it can lead to re-founding of the diocese, a leading US based professor of theology has informed the first gathering in preparation for the spring 2016 event.

Some 350 delegates drawn from all areas of Catholic faith in Limerick who have stepped forward for selection for the Synod attended the first event in preparation for the Synod itself at Mary Immaculate College on Saturday.

The Synod – the first in Ireland in 50 years and first in the diocese in 70 years - will be preceded by an 18^th month period of reflection and listening that commenced on Saturday and will be officially launched at a special Mass on Sunday, December 7^th in St. John’s Cathedral.

The delegates that came together for Saturday’s gathering and will remain on the synod journey right through to the synod itself in 2016 are drawn from 60 parishes and 25 other groups, range in age from those in their late teens to people in their ‘80s and are drawn from all sectors of society from politicians to doctors, people drawn from various ethnic backgrounds right through to the unemployed and students.
 

Titled ‘Together in Mission’, the inaugural event heard from key-note speaker Fr Paul Philibert - a Dominican friar and expert in pastoral theology from the US who has written extensively on church, spirituality, and liturgy - that a synod is essential if we are to take on board the type of change we now need.

“The synod will help us to name the unusable past and to aim for the necessary future” he said.
“In his pastoral letter of convocation, Bishop Brendan clearly indicated that the synod will have some mighty challenges ahead of it. He referred to the ecclesial trauma caused by the revelation of horrible deeds done to children. Those stories and those wounds will need to be named, and assurances of clear changes of policy will need to be credible and fully understood.

“Moreover, the practice of the faith has declined, and the majority of our young adults have not settled down into the church as a spiritual home. In a broader sense, not just Roman Catholics, but the Irish people as a whole find it harder to see the link between faith and culture. There is, as Pope Francis keeps reminding us, a profound need for re-evangelization.”

Fr Philibert said that there will have to be some ‘emptying out’ and the biggest aspect of this will be in recalibrating our understanding of what the church is and what our role within it must be.

He said that exaggerated ideas of the priest’s role was not good for the ordained nor for the laity who, under such circumstances, could hardly imagine their Christian lives as apostolic.

“During the last fifty years, a downturn in vocations, often flawed catechesis (or worse, no catechesis), the onslaught of pathological media, and generations attuned to vacuous overstimulation have created a populace addicted to excitation and starved for religious formation. Today, ironically, we have vast resources for communication unimaginable to our great-grandparents, on the one hand, and the effective loss of the deep practical meaning of the Christian life, on the other.

“What on earth might be done about such a predicament? Hold a synod,” he continued.

He said that we must let go of calculating Christian life in terms of Masses, rosaries, and novenas alone. “These were the lifeblood of Catholics in the hard times, and they are due all proper respect. But we must let go of thinking of the saving sacrifice of the Mass as something done for us but without us.”

With regard to what the Synod will mean for delegates and the wider diocese, he said, “We can say that it will pose a series of questions that will shape not only the ministry of the diocese, but the life and witness of its people. Do you want to be clients of an ecclesiastical franchise? Do you want to be observers of sacred, sacramental rites performed for your inspiration and spiritual comfort? Do you want to continue to be part-time Christians who visit churches but live in a lusty world? Or, by contrast, do you want to be an active member of a mutually-ministering community that has the world and its culture in view?

“The synod could be an invitation to enter a new age of hope, of discovery, a new age of joy and investment, leading to new challenges but also to deeper peace.”

Other talks were given to delegates on the specially designed Synod logo and the Synod Web-site, while there were a number of workshops, including on ‘The Irish Catholic Catechism for Adults as a resource for creating encounters with Christ’, ‘Catholic Education and the Synod’, ‘The Synod and parish life: Exploring how the synod journey will connect with the life of parish and parishioners’, ‘Synodality and Vatican II’, ‘The Synod as a Pilgrimage in Faith’, and ‘Reading the Signs of the Times’.

Reflecting on Saturday’s first gathering of Synod delegates, Bishop Brendan Leahy said, “This was the first coming together for the delegates and there was definitely a real sense of energy and enthusiasm about the role of the diocese going forward and how we can look at the obvious challenges we face not as hurdles but platforms for positive change.”

Said Fr. Éamonn Fitzgibbon, Episcopal Vicar, as Director of the Synod Fr Eamon Fitzgibbon, “We have had a really engaging and energizing start for the Synod process. Fr. Philibert delivered a captivating address and there was much more food for thought in the various workshops. Ultimately, there is huge goodwill for the Diocese and an appetite for the positive change that we are going to effect. We are now all eagerly looking forward to the Synod launch on December 7^th.”

For full details on the synod, go to its website www.synod2016.com