Father Provost, what exactly is a synod?
     A synod is where the bishop calls together people from across the diocese, both priests, religious and lay people, to discuss with them the basic vision of what the diocese is and where it's going - what the mission of the diocese is - and in that context make some decisions as to its middle-term or long-term future. It's kind of a vision-setting occasion, but it also has a lot of practical possibilities. The bishop can issue laws or decrees on the occasion of the synod, which help implement the vision that gets developed there.

What sort of decree or law might one see produced at a synod?
     The history of synods is that they occurred when bishops issued legislation. Clergy gathered with the bishop and the bishop had to consult them about the laws he was going to pass. Then he issued the laws, which were anything that governed the life of the diocese. Most of that today is done by diocesan policies that the bishop sets out periodically, for example a policy on marriage preparation or on Church buildings or on catechetics or schools, preaching, policies about lay people's involvement in the life of the Church ... those kinds of things.
     That can be done by the bishop on his own. When he calls a synod he does it in the context of getting a lot of advice across the archdiocese, so that when he comes up with the rules to live by in the foreseeable future, he's had a lot of good input from everybody around the diocese.

So it's all about getting him the best advice?
     Well, plus it's a means by which the whole diocese gets a better sense of what it is, and pulls together in terms of moving ahead, so that the experience of working with one another from across the archdiocese and dealing on the issues that the archbishop sets before the synod generally tends to get people excited about what they are as a church, and they develop a deeper sense of where they can go with it.

Is there a danger that they might get their hopes set too high?
     Well, there can be a danger in the North American context if we think of this thing as a democratic assembly like a legislature. It's not a parliament, it's rather an occasion for the bishop to hear carefully what the people of the archdiocese have to say, for the people to hear what one another have to say, but for the people also to hear what the bishop's decision is in terms of where they're going to move.
     The bishop is the only legislator in the synod, so his word is law, as it were. But it's done in a context in which he listens to people.

If there is a tendency sometimes in North American society to think this is an opportunity to achieve goals that certain groups might have, is the bishop under any pressure?
     Put it this way, the bishop is under considerable limitation. He cannot adopt policies or rules for his archdiocese that are contrary to general Church teaching or CHURCH law. So he has to stay within the communion of the Church.
     Everybody, whether it's a parish priest or bishop or parish council member, is under certain efforts by people to influence their views. Just the fact of reading the morning newspaper does that. But the bishop is truly supposed to be free in whatever he does at the synod, and he doesn't have to follow any particular group's desires.

How did you first become involved in synods?
     I'm a canon lawyer, and it's a major area of canon law, plus it's an area of renewed life in the Church today. Synods before the Second Vatican Council tended to be a fairly open-and-shut kind of thing. There was the clergy getting together, and the bishop had already worked through a series of committees on the laws, and so they might take place in an afternoon.
     Since the council, they have become a very dynamic part of the life of the Church. All over the world bishops have been convening synods in their dioceses, and this has had a really good impact on the life of the local churches.

So synods are not primarily a Western church concept?
     No, actually they're an Eastern church concept. In the Eastern churches, both the Eastern Catholic churches and the Orthodox churches, synods have a long tradition. They're part of the whole Catholic tradition in itself. But synods have been held in Africa, Latin America, Europe, North America, and Asia since the council. Not every place has had one, but it's impressive the number of places that have done it and have found it beneficial.

How is the concept of a diocesan synod different from the bishops' synods we've seen around the world?
     It's a different kettle of fish. Those are the bishops representing various countries coming together to advise the Pope on things, but it's not designed to produce any kind of legislation or basic policy change. It's really a way of informing the Pope about the conditions of the Church around the world.
     Is there one element that you can say leads to a diocesan synod's success, or makes one better than the other?
     The most important thing is prayer. A synod that is well prepared by prayer, and in which liturgy and prayer form the key experience of people, helps everybody remember that what we are about is Church, and not something else. So the planning of the liturgies and the designing of the prayer occasions are really important. It's not just a side part of it, it's central to what is a synod.
     A second thing that seems to be kind of important is the bishop's personal involvement. People have to know he cares about this and that he is committed to doing something as a result of the synod. The ones where the bishop has said, "Well, we'll have a synod," but hasn't been very clear on what he's going to do to follow through from it, have kind of stumbled, whereas when the bishop has said from the start, "I'm committed to this, we're committed to a long-term process here, and the synod is a key element of it," people have a sense that they're involved in something that's going to continue, and that the effect of what they've done is going to be felt.

How do you ensure that the synod's report doesn't just collect dust on a shelf?
     One of the normal ways of doing that in the Catholic Church setting is to institutionalize it, and you do that through a group like a diocesan pastoral council or the presbyteral council - some entity that exists usually in law and that takes this on as its agenda. That agency then becomes the group responsible to see that people do follow through on stuff.

What are the earliest examples of synods in the Church?
     There's the so-called council of Jerusalem, where they called together the apostles and the elders of the Church in Jerusalem to talk with Paul and Barnabas who had come up from Antioch to talk about the gentile converts. We know that synods were held from the very early centuries of the Church, probably the first, second century. It was just a normal experience of bishops, and in those days it was the bishop and the clergy who got together and talked things over. They were supposed to be held twice a year in the original legislation, and we know that, for example, in the diocese of Rome they were held quite regularly for quite a while.

Is there an average length of time from beginning to end?
     A lot depends on how much a diocese wants to do in a synod. Some dioceses have a pretty heavy agenda, and they spread that out over several different sessions, so it's taken a year and a half for some of them to complete the synod, from when it's first opened to when they have the final session. Other places have done it all in one session, usually three or four days, and then some places have done it in two or three sessions. So it really varies depending upon the amount of work to be done.

With the approaching end of the millennium and with this being the Year of the Holy Spirit, is there any increase in the number of synods?
     As far as I can tell they're going on at about the same pace -- I haven't seen a huge increase in the number of synods -- but they are certainly going on in a variety of places. The observance of the millennium is taking on so many different forms in different dioceses it's kind of hard to say there's a pattern.
     In many places the run-up to the synod is as important as the synod itself, in the sense that it's a period of time in which they involve the people in the parishes in a considerable in-depth discussion of Church life. You can't have everybody in the archdiocese show up at the synod itself, so what they'll often do is break things down, so that for several months or even years prior to the synod there's considerable lively discussion going on at various levels in the archdiocese.

That wouldn't occur prior to the synod being called, though, would it?
     No, usually the synod is called with a formal session and then the bishop announces on that occasion what steps will be followed to get to the formal sessions of the synod.

Is there an experience involving a synod that has particularly struck you in some way?
     At our own diocesan synod, the bishop was very clear he wanted everybody to discuss things openly and he would not interfere in terms of the open discussion. I'm from a diocese which is very rural, and the people are very concerned about whether there will be enough priests so that we can have Mass in the future. And a number of people got up and said to the bishop, "why can't we have some of our priests who've been dispensed and gotten married? Why can't they be allowed to say Mass? Why can't we have married men ordained?"
     Well, of course the bishop can't do anything about that. But it was very clear to me that this was coming out of the heart of the people, and the same kinds of concerns have come up in other parts of the world. In some places the bishop has said in advance that there will be some things he can't deal with, because they go beyond Church policy." But the people have said "would you at least take this as our desire and pass it on to higher authority?"
     Some bishops have done that and some have not. Some bishops have said "I'm not even going to consider it, because I can't do anything about it."

But that desire may be helpful?
     The desire was very interesting to me. It came out of the people kind of spontaneously. These were not people who came from some group, they were just ordinary parishioners who were really concerned about whether they are going to have Mass in the future.

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