
Australia’s Catholic bishops have every reason to look forward to a busy and productive 2025. The recent report of the Synod on Synodality, promptly and emphatically endorsed by Pope Francis, charts a clear course and calls for “rapid implementation” of a raft of initiatives. What’s more the Synod insists bishops work collaboratively with their laity, on an agenda with clear reform priorities that align with repeated calls by Australian lay Catholics.
The inertia and timidity that has characterised the collective leadership style of Australia’s bishops ought now to be a thing of the past. Recent years have seen the outcomes from the closely managed Plenary Council of the Australian church referred to Rome for formal approval. While for several senior Archbishops this was a convenient further delay, the prompt approval and promulgation of the report of the universal church’s Synod on Synodality has effectively gazumped these delaying tactics.
Both the Synod and Pope Francis are now saying that it is imperative that a range of initiatives to make the church more transparent, accountable and non-clericalist, must be implemented expeditiously. They admit this requires courageous and creative leadership and it is clear that the agenda is far more reformist than that which emerged from the Australian Plenary.
The Synod report is effectively a user manual for a revitalised church – a church faithful to the theology and ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council. It is very much about how the church ‘does church’. In one sense that could be seen as boring and tedious, but it goes to the heart of what is involved in procedural, cultural and structural reform necessary to propel the Catholic Church into a mid-21st century world as a ‘fit for purpose’ evangelising force.
In the aftermath of the sexual abuse scandal Australian lay Catholics made clear to the leadership of the local church that to be responsible, honest and effective the church needed to be and be seen to be transparent, accountable, non-clericalist, inclusive and humble. These elements were expressed consistently by faithful Catholic reform groups around the country. The Plenary Council poked around in these areas, but under a tight rein and the ultimate voting bloc of the bishops, it merely dipped its toe into these waters and then hesitated and reverted to a familiar and reassuring timidity.
A very good example of this was a report into church governance commissioned by the bishops in response to the Royal Commission report and in conjunction with the Plenary Council. Its findings and recommendations set out in a report, The Light from the Southern Cross: Co-Responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia of 2021, were initially described by the bishops as “remarkable” and “an invaluable point of reference as we look to the future.” Little has been heard of the report since that time. But unlike many other commissioned documents the report ought not just be taken out of the bottom drawer. It represents a unique opportunity for the Australian church to not only respond fulsomely to the Synod’s expectations, but position the Australian bishops to lead the world in implementing its agenda.
This highlights the dynamic impact that the Synod report must inevitably have in the Australian church context. It has never been plainer that the bishops now have guidelines that require they move forward with meaningful reform. Engaged lay Catholics in Australia also strongly support both the direction and the specific reforms that the Synod report sets out. Furthermore, the report explicitly urges bishops to seek and enlist the expertise that lay groups can offer from the many areas of shared decision making and leadership that already exist in the Australian Catholic church. One only has to think of the church’s reach into the fields of education, health and charitable works to realise that there is a proven path and expertise available.
“Rapid implementation” is not just a clear mandate, it is now an explicit expectation on the bishops. For the first time ever, a Vatican document of this nature actually references the need for and value of “evaluation”, for measuring diocesan/bishop performance. It sees this as “a powerful educational tool for bringing about a change in culture”. It makes clear that bishops will be held to account for their progress or lack thereof. It ought not take individual bishops long to realise that there is a vast reservoir of knowledge and goodwill that they can tap into to advance a shared leadership approach in their diocese.
Despite numerous rejections of earlier offers to help, Catholic lay groups remain willing to assist. Shared church leadership and accountability are expressions of authentic baptismal theology. The prospect of that journey beginning with goodwill, trust, imagination and courage brings together a coherence that has rarely been experienced. There is now a shared journey to a common goal. Let it begin in earnest in 2025.