"Understanding the Synod on Synodality's Agenda"

Lay leaders share their thoughts on the working document for the upcoming Synod of Bishops in October, which proposes questions around three priority issues and gets into controversial matters such as lay governance, women’s diaconate, and priestly celibacy. The document describes “the characteristic signs of a synodal Church” and highlights “conversation in the Spirit” as a way of enacting this synodality. The leaders express surprise at the centrality of synodality to Catholic ecclesiology and the use of the method of “conversation in the Spirit.”