Synod chair reviews ‘long, intense’ synod process
By Kathleen Ogle
Managing Editor
Following the formal closing of the Diocese of Metuchen’s first synod, The Catholic Spirit sat down with Msgr. William Benwell, vicar general and moderator of the curia, to discuss the two-year-plus process. In excerpts from the interview, Msgr. Benwell, who served as chairman of the synod, discusses the achievements and highlights as well as the challenges and disappointments of the process. The interview, which was recorded for the diocesan archives, took place Feb. 2 in the vicar general’s office at the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center.
Looking over the past two years, what would you say are the strengths of the synod process?
I think the greatest strength of the synod process is that it got people connected on many different levels. It connected them with their parish because the first round of Speak Up Sessions were parish based. It got people connected with the diocese because they understood that this was something that could impact the diocese. It may have made the diocese more real to people. I think the diocese is sometimes seen as an entity ‘out there’ because people’s primary experience of church is parish. I hope that it will bring a closeness in our diocese, that we’re not seen as 108 entities with this umbrella of the Diocese of Metuchen but that we’re all part of the local church. I think the synod did that, at least for 7,000 people who came out to participate and also for those couldn’t
participate but who read about it. I think it connected people with their bishop. It got people talking to each other and seeing each other as fellow travelers on this journey of life as part of the church.
What we did is good theology of church. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians that the Spirit is poured out on all the community and everybody has been given a gift for some good purpose. A lot of people don’t feel like they have a gift or feel like their gift will not be accepted. For a bishop to be listening to his priests, to his religious, to his deacons, to his laity, and for them to have a voice and to be heard, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s church and a synod does that.
What were the weaknesses in the synod process?
An inherent weakness or difficulty in the synod process is that by its nature you’re always sort of doing it for the first time. Because it is such a big undertaking and
because it’s meant to set the agenda for years to come you don’t have many of them. The people who do the second synod of the Diocese of Metuchen are not going to be the ones who did this one. We certainly had guides — other dioceses, the instruction of the Holy See — but when it comes right down to actually doing it, it’s a big thing that none of us had ever done before. We had to project and speculate how things would work. Some things worked and some things didn’t.
Every committee in the synod process was asked to write down their experiences so that the next group that comes along will have more than a blueprint; they’ll have some good material to work with.
Tying the synod to the celebration of 25th anniversary made sense but it put pressure on us. Sometimes that is helpful to the creative process, but I felt personally that the timeline was really tough. On the other hand, if we didn’t have this we might still be at some early stage of the process.
If we did it all over again, there would have been much more catechesis and seeking in personal ways to get more of our leadership — including some of our pastors — more invested. You only learn these things when it’s over. All in all, I think we accomplished some things.
Were there other aspects of the synod that would have benefited from more time?
A place where we were disappointed was in the second round of Speak Up Sessions. We had thousands come out during the first round, but many less people came out for phase II, and that’s where a lot of these topics got boiled down into concrete proposals. We didn’t have a good phase II turnout compared to phase I. It could have had to do with communication or how they were structured, but obviously there was a great deal of interest that was not sustained. Obviously something happened or something needed to happen.
Did the Topical Commissions have enough time to do their work?
They came up with some very good proposals but they were working under a very difficult deadline. I credit the Topical Commissions with doing a great job under tremendous pressure.
Although there were some minor word changes, the bishop promulgated all 59 proposals recommended by the Topical Commissions. What then was the point of having the delegates vote on the proposals in synod sessions?
The bishop promulgated 59 proposals because 59 proposals were recommended by the delegates. If a bigger minority opposed a proposal it might not have been promulgated. I think the bishop made a decision that he was going to be faithful to his original feeling that he was going to trust the delegates and trust the process.
But there wasn’t the same level of support for all 59.
We put the ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ votes together and the ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ votes and abstentions together. The highest percentage for any proposal where the delegates felt they could not recommend it was 32 percent. Now, 68 percent to 32 percent in a presidential election would be considered a landslide.
The bishop didn’t promulgate word for word all 59. Wherever more than a quarter of the delegates felt they could not endorse a proposal, we tried to figure out why and that’s where there were changes to the language. The abstentions gave us an opportunity to see why the people disagreed with a proposal.
How did you handle the abstentions?
We combined the abstentions with the ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ votes. It was difficult when we looked at the abstentions because the comments were all over the place, but in some cases you could see a trend.
So the bishop did not just rubberstamp the proposals?
In one case, in accepting the delegates’ recommendation to change the name of the Pro-Life Activities Office to the Respect for Life Office, the bishop went against some feelings in the pro-life community. There’s a strong minority that feels when you take away the term ‘pro-life’, you have abandoned the fight against abortion.
Here was a situation where the delegates were saying one thing and some people in the ministry were saying something else. How that norm is going to be implemented is going to be very sensitive.
Norm 43 addresses the role of women in the church. The three specific parts to the original proposal were eliminated. What happened there?
I think the Topical Commission and the people who participated in the Speak Up Sessions were very ambitious with their recommendations to address the role of women in the church. I don’t think the delegates had a problem with giving women their proper place in the church, but they did not know how the parishes were going to pay for some of these initiatives. The bishop kept the language of the original proposal — the Bishop will appoint a task force to expand the leadership role of women in the Church of Metuchen, both on the diocesan and parish levels — but eliminated the bullet points. He kept the ideal in place but will let implementation work out the details.
How would you characterize the resolution of these contentious areas?
I think that for the most part we tried to find common ground. As Judy Tabert put very well when she introduced the Social Justice proposals to the delegates in the synod sessions, ‘We had everything.’ We had people saying women shouldn’t be involved at all in the church and we had people saying women should be celebrating Mass. You can’t have both, so somebody is going to be unhappy with a lot of these things. We tried to find common ground and then let some of these things get worked out in implementation.
Would you characterize the outcome of the synod as liberal or conservative?
I would defy anyone to characterize any of these proposals as liberal or conservative. I don’t think they are either. I think we found common ground. We talked about things that people might consider very conservative, such as the bishop writing a pastoral letter on the Eucharist, and we also talked about things that are really rather radical for the church: pastors being accountable and lay people being involved areas where lay people haven’t been involved.
I would characterize these norms as reflecting the wisdom of the people and the desire for us all to work together on the same page. There is not an agenda that runs through these proposals. There is not a camp that won or lost.
The theme of accountability is very strong in these norms.
It should be because it was strong in people’s minds. Also communication was strong. Let’s not be 108 islands. Let’s work together at the deanery level. We are in this together, let’s combine and use our resources. Another strong theme was education for adults, going beyond religious education and Catholic school education.
What were the surprises during this multi-year process?
The biggest surprise — we felt this very strongly on the Synod Secretariat and the Synod Commission — was that everything was more involved than we thought it would be. There were so many variables and unknowns. I don’t think anyone expected the amount of detail. It was a bigger under-taking than any of us expected. It amazes me that in the old Canon Law it prescribed that there be synods every 10 years. That was never observed, and now I know why.
Why do you think so few members of the clergy participated in the synod?
There is always a percentage that are not with the program, that are not open to the possibilities of trying new things. It goes back to that attitude, which I hope the synod is changing, that every parish is an island. Instead of having 108 entities working together as part of the ministry of our one bishop, it’s sometimes like we’re 108 dioceses that have some loose connection to each other.
Lack of buy-in not just limited to the clergy; we also got negative comments from the laity, who right from the beginning, said that this wasn’t going to work. I don’t know if it’s cynicism or a reluctance to change.
What impact will the lack of clergy buy-in have on implementation?
I don’t know but there’s not complete clergy buy-in on anything. That is a problem across the board. I hope that accountability is going to change some of that. I hope the Commission for Synod Implementation will learn from our experience and seek buy-in from the clergy. There will be some pastors on the commission. We will have to face that issue like we face every issue.
What is the plan for implementation?
There will be 10 people on the Commission for Synod Implementation, with myself as an ex-officio member as vicar general and moderator of the curia, that will be charged with the big picture, similar to the Synod Commission, who will look at the best way to go forward. We expect that in time there will be an office or something like the Synod Secretariat that will work to implement the nuts and bolts.
Implementation will not be overnight. It will take years maybe before it is fully implemented. There has to be a prioritization, and there are some things that will require some research before they are implemented. There will be some results immediately and some results over time. We hope to keep people appraised over time.
Is there anything else you would like to say about the synod process?
Do you know the Everly Brothers? Phil Everly once said about being in the Marines, ‘I wouldn’t have traded the experience but I would never do it again.’ I would say the same thing. I’m glad we got it done and I’m glad we’re moving forward.
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law