Two recent events frame the many discussions within the church reform movement, while many of its constituent groups continue to engage with the international Synod on Synodality. Pope Francis suddenly announced in a major interview with an American television network that ordaining women deacons, a long-held aspiration of the movement for women’s equality in the church, would never happen. For many reformers this was the final straw, dashing any remaining hopes for concrete action on what was still supposed to be a ‘live issue’, though sidelined to a Synod study group. Remarkably though, some like the irrepressible campaigner Phyllis Zagano, are still optimistic that long-term reform, years beyond the current Synod, might still be possible.
About the same time the official Australian Catholic Mass Attendance Report 2021 reflected once again the local church’s abysmal state. Its decline, one factor in generating calls for reform, has continued unabated. Frequently reported under the headline ‘the church is now online and multicultural’, this report showed that regular church attendance, admittedly in the COVID era, had plunged again since 2016, from a dismal 11.8 per cent to just 8.2 per cent of Catholics (itself now only 20 per cent of the Australian population). The attendance figure, a good measure of identification and belonging, for male Catholics is now below 8 per cent, while women are higher. In one diocese, Maitland-Newcastle, the overall figure is less than 4 per cent. The attendance figures also highlight the increasing diversity of the Catholic community, with 13 per cent of Catholics attending Mass in a language other than English. The attendance figures for Eastern Rite Catholics are sky-high and, in some cases, rising.
My reflections follow involvement in a local meeting in late April and an international meeting of Catholic Church Reform International (CCRI) in early May, which discussed its draft submission to the Synod.
In both cases the resilience of church reformers continues to amaze me. The Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform maintains its long-running series of excellent Zoom speakers. But inevitably the level of trust and optimism is slowly fading away. Even the official report on the Australian submissions to the second assembly of the Synod in October was open about the consultation fatigue within the church.
This is in marked contrast to the situation that existed in 2017. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had just concluded its enquiries as had the church’s own Truth Justice and Healing Commission. Many Catholics, sensing the crisis, were keen to hold the church authorities to account.
Later that year the Plenary Council began to take shape and extensive community consultations followed. There was widespread engagement through several hundred thousand participants and 17,500 submissions. A significant minority of Catholics possessed enthusiasm for reform and, more importantly, still trusted that their voices would be listened to by bishops.
That is no longer the case seven years later. We Australian Catholic reformers are tired and, in some cases battered and bruised, from engagement with the church. We are also older. Most of us have lost hope that reform will occur in our lifetime.
'The reality is that the official Church treats reform groups with disdain. It doesn’t even recognise their positive contribution to public church debate by empowering Catholics.'
We are now witnessing a changed dynamic within the movement. The balance within its component parts has changed towards a more pessimistic view of officialdom. A minority is still hopeful; a few even remain optimistic, but most are struggling.
The majority view now is that reform groups have been too reactive to the official church. This view, always one strand, is that engagement has proved to be a dead end. We instead need to model what being church should look like and stop trying to reform the institutional church because that goal is no longer achievable.
There is a widespread agreement now that the Plenary Council didn’t deliver. This is a bitter pill for reformers to swallow given the enormous effort which went into community engagement.
The Australian church missed ‘catching the wave’ of some popular enthusiasm during 2017-2022. Worse than that it has given reformers no credit and instead ground their voices down by obfuscation and delay.
The majority view among reformers now is that the Synod won’t deliver the necessary reforms either. It has been made clear that ‘embedding cultural change’ is the Pope’s objective. That is, building ‘a synodal church’.
The Synod has steered away from confrontation and hot button issues. Women’s equality, a regular priority in continental submissions, ironically is one of them and, despite kind though patronising words, the Pope has now made clear that won’t happen.
What the church needs now is not faithful engagement but disruption. It certainly needs disruption on the ‘woman’s equality’ issue. What that might mean in practice is not clear, but something must be done even if fragmentation follows.
Most reformers now believe that the western Church is dying, or at least the Vatican 2 Church is dying. The Mass Attendance figures for 2021 confirm this. Whatever survives in Australia won’t be the Anglo-Celtic Vatican 2 church, but something quite different.
By participating in strictly circumscribed diocesan events, many think we are colluding with officialdom. That is a sad conclusion. Behind the relatively benign idea of consultation ‘fatigue’ lies the darker notion of consultation ‘resentment’. The ‘Emperor Church’ has no Clothes. The scales have fallen from the eyes of many reformers.
The reality is that the official Church treats reform groups with disdain. It doesn’t even recognise their positive contribution to public church debate by empowering Catholics (see the latest document reporting on the limited implementation of the Plenary, which does at least give credit to Garratt Publishing and Yarra Theological Union).
Similar themes are evident internationally. There is still some remarkable willingness to engage, but the balance has moved from relative optimism to prevailing pessimism.
For international groups like CCRI the central issue must be equality for women. Some are still optimistic that Francis remains on track; that perhaps the 2024 session of the Synod may not be the last; that the Study Groups will evolve into something productive. But this is a minority position. Nevertheless, the majority persists with the 2024 Synodal process in Rome, still hoping that our voices will be ‘heard’ by the institutional church.
Where to from here? Reformers may still throw a light on the Synod as distinct from trying to influence it through participation. But that distinction must be clear.
Group and individual effort and advocacy still play a positive role. Shining lights among Australian reform groups include Women and the Australian Church (WATAC), Sense of the Faithful (SF) in Melbourne and Concerned Catholics Tasmania (CCT). WATAC models an alternative church through Australian Women Preach, SF does valuable evidence-based tracking of Plenary Council implementation, CCT engages with the Tasmanian church community and pressures the official church as best it can despite the conservative environment in that state.
These are painful times for the church reform movement. The distinction between hope and optimism has been explored by writers like Vaclav Havel and Seamus Heaney. Like them I don’t expect ‘things to turn out well’ though I remain convinced that there is ‘good worth working for’ within the church.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University.
Main image: Man sitting in church. (Stefan Kunze/Unsplash)