This is part of Outreach’s series of articles on the Study Group 9 report.
“Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelations, 21:5)
I want to talk to you about something that feels new. More specifically, I want to reflect on “the generative dynamism of tradition” (9), “the generative superabundance of the Gospel” (18), “the logic of emergence emphas[izing] the capacity of the entire people of God to “stay with the trouble” (18). 1
Reading the report from Synod Study Group 9 brought to my heart various occasions in which my faith journey has been expanded, magnified, made more deeply anchored in the Divine love that will not let us go, indeed, looked upon something new because of an encounter with “those who find themselves living on the existential, cultural, and social ‘peripheries’” (6).
As James Martin, SJ noted earlier, the report marks one of the first times, if not the very first, that a Vatican document has included the experiences of gay men in its text. Prior reflections provide excellent analysis on the report: Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, offers a breakdown of the scriptural narratives that witness the intersections of essential elements of the tradition with the concrete experiences of the faithful and the need to recognize “the same Spirit at work.” For Johnson, in the waters of Baptism the Spirit bestows the same gifts on baptized LGBTQ persons as all other baptized members of the community. Antonio Autiero carefully draws the implications of the “paradigm shift” at the heart of the report, which asks that we consider that “conduct and the practice of life are not determined by static deduction from abstract principles, but find their deepest ethical meaning in the lived history of moral agents and their search for authenticity in their relationships with themselves, with others, and with God.” Kevin Ahern grounds his reflection on his experience of parenting as the messy intersection of expectations and lived realities. He acknowledges that theology, too, must reflect the intersection (and tension) between “the truth of faith” and “the truth of life” (an insight from Cardinal Cardijn included in his reflection). Lucas Sharma, SJ highlights the impact of listening with open hearts to the experiences of faithful LGBTQ, to begin our conversations about our gay or trans siblings from their experience of their life of faith as opposed to preassigned theological constructs.
In the couple’s steadfastness to each other in the challenges of raising a family I can see grace, the divine glue that I pray helps my marriage remain steadfast too.
It is this last insight, the impact of “listening with open hearts” or what the report calls “the dynamic of relational conversion” that I want to focus on as the necessary condition for encountering something new (13).
The report states that “relational conversion is a conversion to the logic of ‘correspondence’”, making us attentive to the dynamics of the relationship in the present as well as the promise of new relational and institutional configurations. Relational conversion also asks that we commit to the “exchange of gifts” (as presented in the Final Document of the Synod) that comes from every level of the church’s mission and the diverse contexts and experiences of its people. Finally, relational conversion demands learning through experience. Within this framework, all the baptized have the capacity to learn together.
Let me consider this methodological turn of the report through three formative events in my journey of faith grounded on the experiences of those not often included in the ecclesial we.
Every Christmas season I look forward to a card from family friends of ours. The card includes a photo of their beautiful children, adopted like our oldest two children, growing, having fun, becoming loving human beings serving the common good. In particular, I look forward to this card because I owe a significant part of my faith journey to one of the people in this same-sex marriage. His faithful witness to the gospel when we were younger brought me closer to Jesus, cementing lessons that have stayed in my heart since and that continue to shape my faith to this day. I also look forward to the card because in the couple’s steadfastness to each other in the challenges of raising a family I can see grace, the divine glue that I pray helps my marriage remain steadfast too.
Their experience of sacrificial love and care asks me to consider the commitment of my own marriage, how best to support my spouse in sickness and in health and how to uphold his dignity at every moment.
Both Elizabeth Johnson and Fr. Sharma noted the absence of women’s voices in the testimony included in the report. Another experience formative of my faith has been the loving, consistent and graceful care that one member of a female couple dear to our family has exhibited for years toward her beloved after the latter suffered a stroke. This couple witnesses devoted care in sickness, loving accompaniment, physical support, cherishing the gift of each other even when everyday actions are a struggle with little chance of recovery. Their experience of sacrificial love and care asks me to consider the commitment of my own marriage, how best to support my spouse in sickness and in health and how to uphold his dignity at every moment, even when the chips are down (and, believe me, them chips fall down plenty!).
My faith is nothing without listening with an open heart to others’ experiences of grace, love, pain, fidelity, peace, creation, sorrow, grief, hope, salvation, joy, disability, healing, parenting and being church.
The third experience comes from the Synod itself. In 2021 the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development led a project called “Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries”. The project was designed to establish synodal conversations with geographies and communities of people (migrants on the move, sex workers, incarcerated persons, indigenous communities) that would not have had the ability to take part in the process were it not for intentional listening to the voice of the Spirit in the peripheries. The report of indigenous voices from Oceania contained insights that completely reshaped my theological and scriptural outlook. Their context is the existential plight of island nations facing extinction due to climate change. I include here some of their testimonies reflecting their sense of ontologically belonging to Mother Earth and to God:
- “We believe our Earth is Mother Earth, it nurtures us, it raises us, it feeds us and looks after us.”
- “Our God is triune and forever moving through us, entering into us, and then out of us as well to other people. That Trinitarian belief system links beautifully with the Aboriginal notion of Creator Spirit. And Pope John Paul II in his Blatherskite Park, Alice Springs address, over 30 years ago indicated that God’s presence has been with Aboriginal people from the beginning. So, to me that means I can explain in my own mind that the Creator Spirit and triune God are the same.”
- “…You know the earth is our Mother. And so we are people of the earth. I was actually reading in Genesis, God picks up a piece of dirt and he blows air into it, you know he blows human—he blows air into—breath into mankind. You know we’ve had God with us since the beginning of time. Thousands of years before the birth of Abraham, God was here working with my people.”
That last very profound, very contextual insight broke open for me the biblical narrative of salvation as one that weaves in and out of various peoples’ histories, from the moment of creation to the “new things” and our “ultimate eschatological fulfillment” (9).
I have often said that synodality may very well be the fifth mark of the church. My faith is nothing without listening with an open heart to others’ experiences of grace, love, pain, fidelity, peace, creation, sorrow, grief, hope, salvation, joy, disability, healing, parenting and being church. The report insists that “the exercise of conversation in the Spirit must become an ecclesial habitus that marks every step in the implementation of discernment processes” (19).
The inclusion of the testimony of two faithful, gay married couples in the report is not an accident, or an affront. It is an ecclesial necessity for fulfilling our identity as a listening church, trusting “the generative superabundance of the Gospel.”
- Study Group N.9, Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues (2026). The last quote includes a quote from Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Duke University Press, 2016), as cited in the document. ↩︎
