Journeying Together

Pope Francis has made synodality the leitmotif of his papacy. Synodality is most fundamentally about Christians “journeying together.” It requires the ecclesial habit of careful listening to one another and a willingness to address inevitable conflict in a spirit of charity—confident that in doing so the Church can best discern the impulse of the Spirit. Yet we continue to face substantial obstacles to the realization of synodality in the life of the Church.

Identitarian Polarization

At the 2016 consistory, Pope Francis warned of the “virus of polarization” and called for the Church to be a force for healing the deep divisions in our society. Yet the Church, too, carries the virus. Polarization results from forces that create a clustering around two opposed poles. When applied to the cultural realm, polarization is not simply about disagreement; it is about the inability to address disagreements constructively within a larger framework of mutual respect. Differences are accentuated and coalesce around two extreme poles, with the inevitable thinning out of the middle of the spectrum where common ground can most often be found. Polarization precludes meaningful conversation, solidarity, and the prospect of constructive action in the face of shared problems.

Once we identify ourselves with a particular group, there is an extraordinary pull to make common cause with those in our group and to defend our group against the attacks of others. Rational argumentation becomes compromised because, in a given conflict, argument is governed less by the pursuit of truth than by “confirmation bias,” or what Yale Law Professor Dan Kahan refers to as “identity-protective cognition.” This cognitional habit is highly resistant to factual information or counterarguments that would challenge our group identity; we have a deep-felt need for “our people” to be right. Indeed, “getting it right,” as an expression of a rigorous commitment to getting at the truth of things, regardless of the consequences, becomes less important than protecting our tribal identities.

It is not difficult to recognize identity-protective cognition at work in the Church. Progressive “social justice” Catholics who advocate for racial justice will be inclined to dismiss out of hand challenges to elements of critical race theory, for example, because acknowledging the legitimacy of even the most modest concerns might call into question their social justice bona fides. Conservative “pro-life” Catholics similarly engage in identity-protective cognition when they advocate for the appointment of jurists committed to overthrow Roe v. Wade while ignoring whether the reversal of that court ruling would lead to the actual reduction of abortions.

How Can the Church Respond?

Identitarian polarization must be confronted with a set of concrete ecclesial practices. Such practices will find warrant in Jesus’ own liberative ministry and teaching about the reign of God: the radical practice of open table fellowship, the refusal to place the adulterous woman under judgment, his injunction to pray for one’s enemies. Nothing about this will be easy.

Our first Jesuit pope has consistently pressed for the practice of communal discernment as an antidote to these cultural forces. Genuine communal discernment is committed to listening together for the voice of the Spirit along with a determination to follow where the Spirit leads. This communal discernment embraces necessary conflict and disagreement. It recognizes the inevitable limits of any one perspective and encourages an open posture toward alternative points of view. Above all, it demands the cultivation of empathy for one’s opponent.

One concrete response to the demands of our current moment would be to pursue opportunities for “in-group contrarianism.” In-group contrarians locate themselves within a larger group, sharing its fundamental beliefs, values, and goals while objecting to a particular policy, line of argument, or stratagem advocated by the group. An example from American partisan politics would be those Republicans who formed the “Lincoln Project” to oppose Trumpism within the GOP. Or consider those within the LGBT community who advocate caution and careful accompaniment when an adolescent claims a gender identity other than that assigned at birth and requests gender reassignment surgery.

In-group contrarians within the Catholic social justice movement, for example, might challenge their colleagues to end their awkward silence regarding the rights of the vulnerable unborn. In-group contrarians who inhabit a more conservative Catholic space might push back against selective doctrinal and moral purity tests for the reception of the Eucharist, which, Pope Francis reminds us, is not “a prize for the perfect.”

In the increasingly polarized discourses of academic Catholic theology, in-group contrarians who engage in contextual and liberationist approaches might have to risk their progressive credentials by raising awkward questions regarding not only the real contributions but also the potential limitations of critical instruments like feminist gender theory, queer theory, decolonial theory, and critical race theory. In-group contrarians who traffic in the Catholic ressourcement theological circle might need to stand up and insist on the limits and blind spots evident in the Great Tradition and invite their colleagues to grapple with the patriarchal and racist biases that may be “baked in” to central Catholic institutional structures.

Finally, liturgical practice commends itself for our consideration. Could we not return to the liturgy as a space for ecclesial healing and reconciliation? How can we find more opportunities to gather together at the liturgy with those who do not belong to our in-group?

For this to happen, we will need to set aside our “liturgy wars” and resist the current ecclesial sorting in which liberal and conservative Catholics migrate to parishes that exhibit their particular liturgical preferences. For liturgically conservative Catholics, this might mean forsaking ostentatious displays of eucharistic piety (e.g., priests dramatically lingering at the elevation, communicants equally dramatically genuflecting prior to eucharistic reception). It would require liturgically liberal Catholics to resist an excessive informality (e.g., priests presiding as if they were talk show hosts, the liturgical assembly performing the sign of peace as if it were a “hug fest” at a family reunion).

As we follow the lead of Pope Francis in our striving to become a more authentically synodal Church, we must continue to press for institutional reforms that can make synodality a reality at every level of ecclesial life. However, these efforts at institutional reform will go for naught if they are not accompanied by concrete practices that can respond effectively to both the tribalizing forces of our time and the dangerous misrepresentation and escalation of conflict.

Richard R. Gaillardetz is the Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College and the former chair of the BC Theology Department. 

This article excerpt was originally published by Richard R. Gaillardetz, “Reflections on Impediments to Synodality,” in Worship (Vol. 96, No. 1, January 2022), and is reprinted with the permission of Liturgical Press.