Moving from Listening to Action: Exploring the potential of synodality to address the disaffiliation of Catholic women

Synodality is one of the hallmarks of Francis’ papacy. He is inviting encounter, dialogue and listening, especially to those made poor, pushed to the margins of church and / or society, or excluded. Women are one such marginalized group. The role and status of women within the church was a prominent and debated issue before the Synod on Synodality and throughout the synod process, including the two Assemblies (2023 and 2024). It is now the focus of scrutiny in the implementation stage of the Synod. This paper seeks to explore the potential of synodality to address some of the reasons why Catholic women may decide to disaffiliate from the Catholic tradition.

The Synod called for submissions from all corners of the earth to give voice to their perspectives, including what caused them to disaffiliate or deconvert from the Catholic Church. Researchers at the University of Newcastle, Australia responded to this call by conducting a global survey of Catholic women. It received 17,200 responses from 104 countries, and the resulting report The International Survey of Catholic Women: Analysis and Report of Key Findings (Tracy McEwan, Kathleen Phillips and Mirriam Pepper, 2023) was translated into eight languages. It revealed 8% of respondents no longer identified as Catholic. Despite widespread reports of strained relationships with the Church, 88% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that Catholic identify was important to them. Nonetheless, 29% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that without reform there was no place for them in the Church. This raises the question of what reforms are needed to prevent disaffiliation, and can synodality address them? How important are the abuse and exercise of power in the desire for reform, and in the desire for synodality?

To date there has not been significant theological reflection on The International Survey of Catholic Women. Such reflection would be particularly helpful in Australia where the Fifth Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in Australia completed its second and final Assembly in July 2022. This Plenary Council itself called for submissions from all, including those alienated from or marginalised within the Church. But this was not the first time that the Church in Australia attempted to listen to women. A multimethod research project on the participation of women in the Catholic Church in Australia was initiated in 1993, planned, and launched in 1996. It included a call for written submissions and thirty-three public hearings around Australia and lead to the publication of Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus (Marie McDonald, Peter Carpenter, Sandie Cornish, Michael Costigan, Robert Dixon, Margaret Malone, Kevin Manning, Sonia Wagner, 1999). The dominant issue arising from that research was the need to recognise the equal dignity of women and men, and the church was seen as lagging behind Australian society in this. The call for greater participation of women in decision making and leadership was a constant and major theme. The report’s 20th and 25th anniversaries have passed with few of its recommendations effectively implemented (Sandie Cornish and Andrea Dean eds. Still Listening to the Spirit: Woman and Man Twenty Years On, 2019).

As someone who worked on that research process in Australia, a co-author of Woman and Man One in Christ Jesus, one of the periti and a member of the Drafting Committee for the Plenary Council, an invited expert facilitating dialogue at the Assemblies of the Synod on Synodality, and  as a lay female theologian working from Australia, I am interested in identifying the reforms that Catholic women have been calling for through these listening exercises, and asking whether they corelate with the outcomes of the Final Document of the Synod. I want to ask whether there is reason to hope that the implementation stage of the Synod can deliver on these reforms? Is synodality too little too late for those who have disaffiliated? Considering the long history of listening without acting, I want to ask whether there is a risk that synodality will trigger an escalation in disaffiliation and deconversion among Catholic women if its potential for transformation is not realised?

Drawing on the findings of the International Survey of Catholic Women and of Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus, and an analysis of the continental and universal documents of the Synod on Synodality, this paper will argue that synodality has the potential to address many of the reforms that women have consistently identified as necessary for them to feel that they have a place in the Church. However, in order to do so, synodality must move beyond simply listening to women, and better facilitate meaningful action on what has been heard. To the extent that the practice of synodality addresses the abuse of power and demarginalizes women in the Catholic Church, it will contribute to addressing the disaffiliation of Catholic women.