Statement of the Synod of the People of God

Rome, Italy October 4-7, 2001

 

We believe that the People of God by reason of their creation in the image of God, their baptism, the tradition of the first Christian communities and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, must:

 

1. ·        Speak out on issues of concern
2. ·        Take responsibility for their church, and
3. ·        Call church leaders to accountability.

 

The gospel tells us that genuine leadership in our church is service (diakonia) to the People of God.  This sense of service must become a reality, not merely a phrase.  Because the situation in our church is urgent and even though genuine dialogue is often blocked, we speak out because we believe that the Spirit cannot be quenched.

 

A.  Church Leadership in the Context of the Larger Human Community and All Creation

 

1. Church leaders, especially at this moment, must call on world leaders to renounce a war of retaliation against terrorism. Let them find ways to bring justice through non-violence.  They must preach the fifth commandment (Thou shalt not kill), rejecting militarism and war as instruments of national and international policy.
2. Church leaders must work to eradicate from the world and our church all other forms of violence including: poverty, discrimination and exclusion of people based on gender or sexual orientation, racism and ethnic or linguistic superiority, violence against conscience, ideological intolerance and the death penalty.  Promoting a culture of life includes advocating the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as access to contraception and other reproductive health services.
3. The 1971 Synod of Bishops, in its document Justice in the World, said that those who preach justice to the world must first be just in the eyes of the world.  Church leaders need to build a church which is a Sacrament of Justice and Non-Violence.
4. Church leaders must repeal Dominus Iesus.  We must engage humbly in serious interfaith dialogue, abandon any sense of Catholic superiority, and welcome ecumenical intercommunion.
5. Church leaders must focus on the scandalous gulf between the rich and the poor of our world, denouncing oppressive globalization and neo-liberal economic models, advocating workers’ rights, the cancellation of the debts of poor nations and the construction of a just and democratic global economic order.
6. Church leaders should promote active care for our planet which is the creation of God.  They must promote ecologically conscious policies that change wasteful and consuming behaviors and conserve the world’s resources for future generations.  The practices of sound ecology must begin in the life of the church itself.
7. Church leaders need to respect the consciences and moral agency of those who make decisions about sexuality and reproduction.  Church leaders need to reconsider church teachings on these issues in the context of the sensus fidelium.
8. The government of the church should not claim the power of a secular state, and in international organizations, the church should assume the same status as other religious bodies.

 

B. Leadership in the Church

 

No form of discrimination should be tolerated in church leadership. All offices, including the diaconate, the ministerial priesthood, the episcopate, and the papacy should be open to all baptized Catholics, male or female, married or single, gay or straight, young or old, those of all races, ethnic or linguistic groups.

I. The Local Church

 

9. The distinguishing characteristic of the leadership of the local church should be its forceful, prophetic, public advocacy for justice, peace, freedom and the integrity of creation.
10. Believers are people of good faith with serious contributions to make to the life and teachings of the church. Local church leaders should begin from that assumption. Local leaders need to be available, in touch with the people, willing to discuss, listen and learn, flexible and open, and interested in the individual person.
11. Leaders should support and seek to understand young people.  They should include them in planning meaningful liturgical celebrations, especially rites of passage, in decision-making and in finding relevant ways to bring the message of the gospel to our world.
12. We affirm a church based on the “Collegiality of all the Baptized.”  Decision-making, leadership and responsibility should be widely shared, promoting the participation of all.  Local synods or councils may implement this. 
13. The People of God should elect their bishops and other leaders.  Those elected should serve for specific terms of office and be accountable to the local community of the faithful. Election procedures should be appropriate to the cultural context, decided by local church communities.
14. The local bishop is a leader who coordinates ministry and fosters unity.  He or she operates from a sense of accountability to the community, and not from a stance of imposition or domination.
15. The local church should institute a method for fair and impartial resolution of disputes, with mediation coordinated by persons not parties to the dispute.  The model of an ombudsperson might be useful.
16. Leaders should accompany their people on their journey of faith, fear not and take risks!  

 

II. The Universal Church

 

17. All the characteristics of the local church described above should apply to the universal church.
18. The Papacy should be based on moral authority, not on jurisdictional power.  A permanent conciliar process is important in a church with widely-shared participation.
19. Leaders of the universal church should include the faithful in developing our understanding of the faith, not be fearful of independent thought, respect the role of the sensus fidelium in the community and the right of individual conscience.  They should advocate unity in what is essential, freedom in what is doubtful and charity in all. 
20. An attitude of open theological inquiry should prevail in the church.  No member or leader of the church should repress or punish other members of the church engaged in theological inquiry or dissent from church teachings.
21. Since God is properly imaged as either male or female, the leadership of the church universal should include women as well as men.  Women are equal to men in both nature and grace.  To deny equality is a form of violence and a limitation on the image of God.
22. Church leaders should have the right and opportunity to share the life experiences of the rest of the community, i.e., there should be no mandatory states of life such as required clerical celibacy.  Leaders who share the life experiences of ordinary people are important in understanding the realities of marriage, divorce and remarriage, reproduction and gay/lesbian relationships.  We call on them to reconsider and reformulate official teachings in these areas, for example: the divorced and remarried should be able to receive communion, artificial contraception should be approved and gay and lesbian people should be welcomed fully into the life of the church.
23. There must be parity among bishops worldwide.  In the spirit of subsidiarity, bishops should reclaim their role as representatives of the local church to the church universal, affirming and explaining the life experiences of their people.
24. Inasmuch as the church universal is the sum of many local diversities, a worldwide “community of communities”, leaders of the universal church should be profoundly respectful of cultural differences in all aspects of church life.