LTACL: Do You Speak Synodal? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.)

0:00Has this ever happened to you? I bet it has. You overhear a conversation, you're listening to a broadcast, and you hear a foreign language and you say, it sounds like a Spanish could be Italian, definitely not German. But what happens if you hear words in your own language, English for me, and you recognize the words is English, but it doesn't make sense. It's not communicating things. There's words and sentences and paragraphs, but what is it? What is this? Does it mean anything at all? And I know you're smiling and nodding knowingly and saying, Father, let me guess, you're talking about synodality, aren't you? Yes, yes, I am. This is my question for today. Do you speak synodal? Because I sure don't. And I think you and I need to learn how to speak synodal. Stay with me. I've got a story to tell. My name is Jesuit Father Robert McTake, your host every day here at the Catholic Current, coming to you from the station of the Cross Catholic Media Network. Let's take a closer look. Glad you're here.

1:07I know that synodality and synotalism must be very important because there's all sorts of documents and meetings and meetings about documents and documents about meetings and getting ready for bigger meetings and on and on it goes. I know there was the great, big, wonderful, beautiful synod on synodality. And there was a final document that was released for all the church in the world and everybody, everybody, everybody to read and marvel at. And this document will be the basis of an even bigger and grander, synotal assembly in 2028, which will do. It's going to. Well, they're going to meet. And there's going to be talking and there's going to be listening and somebody's paying for it and it's going to take a lot of time. But I don't know what to expect how to get ready, what to anticipate because I read the words. I hear the words. I recognize them.

2:07But they're being used in a way that it doesn't, it doesn't, it's, it's not just abstract. It seems empty. So I'm just going to, I dipped my ladle into the into the soup of the synodal document. And here's some of the things that came up. I recognize the words is English, but as a philosopher of theologian religious, a cleric, a disciple of Christ, an academic philosopher of theologian. I don't know what they mean. And the words and the context in which words of use and the people who speak about them so gladly and confidently, they obviously think they're important. So I need some help speaking synodal. So here's the words I need help with participation to live communion, joining the we of the assembly, not strictly normative, authoritative proposal. The style proper to the missionary, sonotal church, creative activation of new forms of ministeriality, co-responsibility, enculturation, new ways of being church, missionary discipleship, inclusivity, shared discernment, a shared baptismal identity, unity,

3:27ferments, prophetically, sonotal methodologies for shared discernment, a renewal of participatory bodies, living through the sonotal process, the conviviality of differences, differentiated co-responsibility, the conviviality of differences by the mystic of peripheries, on and on it goes. And I don't know what that means. Now, I think back to when I was in high school and I was studying Spanish, you know, you had your Spanish dictionary, you had your list of idiomatic phrases, and there was a wonderful book called See It and Say In Spanish. So, you know, they had a picture of a dog and it had the word perro for dog. And I think we should have something like that, a dictionary, a lexicon, a glossary of important sonotal phrases. And then we could have a see and say it section. So I can open the book. And I say, oh, there's a picture of the the we of the assembly. And I can look around. And if I ever see a we of the assembly, I'll be able to recognize because there's a picture

4:39wherever right there in the book. And then I realized I needed more. I needed something else. Why is that? Because one of the clusters of words, trains of words, streams of words from the final document from the Senate on Senateality said this, we must not behave like the Spencer's of grace. Well, gosh, okay, that sounds important. Why not? A little vice in the back of my head said, you've heard that before. So I did some looking and sure enough. And St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians chapter four verses one to two, St. Paul says this, let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Well, gosh, this final document, not strictly normative, but an authoritative proposal to my saying that right, but I have a good sonotal accent. I don't know. But we're told, no dispensers of grace for us. No, no, no. And then you've got St. Paul, you know, St. Paul, the Apostle Church is greatest missionary wrote most of the New Testament is like, oh, yeah, dispensers of the mysteries of God.

6:02Let's double down on that. So which is it? One of these things is not like the other. There's a definite no and a definite yes. And that leaves me a doubt. And how many doubts do you need to have to make a dubia? I don't know. Do we still do that? Do we still do dubia? Anyway. I think we need a lot more than just a lexicon. We need a list of, you know, FAQ, you know, frequently asked questions or questions that should be asked frequently, or if we asked the question frequently enough, maybe, maybe, maybe we'll get an answer someday. So you may remember a few weeks back. I recommended that we, what we needed was a volume of summa contract. Because we've been, we've been hearing all these horrible things about right there. They're, you know, their Protestants of their disobedience, their schematic, all these horrible things. And so gosh, rather than just, you know, wagging finger at them, I said, let's explain. Out of charity for all the tradis and the tradis adjacent to the tradis sympathetic, all the different ways that the tradis are wrong definitive refutation step by step. I do everyone a lot of good summa contract.

7:10Well, I think we need another book, not just the lexicon of all things sonotal, not just a picture book of see and say it in sonotal, but we need a big book that explains and answers questions and resolves ambiguities. We need the summa pro sonodalatory boosts. So everything sonotal, everything sonotal means everywhere that sonality appears to contradict scripture and tradition that needs to be ironed out definitively. We need to have these apparent contradictions made to be to go away. And once those apparent contradictions aren't resolved, once those words are defined, once we have graphic illustrations of what these merely apparently empty words mean, then I think we'll be in a better place. Again, Ephesians 5 verse 6, no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things, the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient. Well, I don't want to be disobedient and you don't want to mess with the wrath of God. Trust me.

8:23So I think this new summa, the new summa pro sonotary boosts is an urgent necessity because the way I read Saint Paul, these words seem to be empty. I'm sure they can be filled in by those who promote them and write them and speak about them so enthusiastically. I just don't have the wherewithal to do it myself. I haven't been able to figure it out of my own, and it's not for lack of trying, and maybe some of you are in the same boat. So let's pray that we're going to get this new summa pro sonotal. I shouldn't ask chat GBT how to pronounce that properly. It's a mouthful. But the summa in favor of all things sonotal, we need to have that and we need to have that right away. And I think that you think so too. And while thinking of these things today, take them to prayer and talk about it with those you love. Go in peace and please do pray for me for I am a sinner.