The Second Vatican Council was not only a meeting of the world’s bishops but also a gathering of theologians. After nearly fifty years of theological renewal, theologians such as Henri de Lubac, John Courtney Murray, Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, Gregory Baum, and Hans Küng gave almost daily lectures in their national groups, greatly influencing the council’s direction and teachings. Following the council, however, the relationship between theologians and bishops remains ambiguous. While the International Theological Commission was established in 1967 to advise the church’s magisterium, a series of investigations were also conducted against theologians like Leonardo Boff, Elizabeth Johnson, and Jacques Dupuis. What can be learned from the period leading up to, during, and after the council regarding the role of a theologian, especially the emergence of lay theologians, in relation to academic theology and church life? If Pope Francis’s vision of synodality is deeply rooted in the Council, then what is the role of the theologian in a synodal church? How might Pope Francis’s recent 2023 motu proprio Ad Theologiam Promovendam reflect the different paradigms and schools of thought at work in a global church?
Theologians in a synodal church are called to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue, which was signaled by the Second Vatican Council. This paper explores how theologians can engage with the field of biology to provide the church with a more nuanced theological anthropology on sex, gender, and sexuality. The essay examines Pope Francis’ call for interdisciplinary scholarship, as emphasized in his 2023 apostolic letter to the Pontifical Academy of Theology. Then, this piece critically engages the 2019 Vatican document on gender theory, highlighting its reliance on biology to support theological claims while not actually incorporating biological research. By addressing intersex conditions, gender identity, and sexuality through both theological and scientific lenses, the essay argues that a more informed interdisciplinary approach is essential for theological anthropology. Such engagement not only deepens the church’s understanding of human identity but also strengthens its dialogue with contemporary society.
In this paper, I observe a gap between the theological aspirations of synodality and its structural implementation. Synodality emphasizes mutual relationship and dialogue as means of discerning the fullness of the sense of the faithful (sensus fidelium) in service of proclaiming the Gospel to the world. However, in practice synodal processes involve acts of selection and curation that do not account for dimensions of Christian community life that are not immediately legible to the norms of formal facilitated discourse. To theorize these “left out” dimensions, I draw on the non-representational theory of Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift and note resonances with Orlando Espín’s examination of lived experience and popular devotion as expressive of the sensus fidelium. Finally, I argue that these gaps suggest a role for theologians, as teacher-scholars, to create occasions to thematize and articulate dimensions of Christian community life that are not accounted for in formal synodal processes.
The invigorated attempt to engage and dialogue with Indigenous peoples within Catholicism at an institutional level is an encouraging step to the Church being truly universal and synodal. At the same time, the voice of lay Indigenous Catholic theologians from Moana Pasifika (or Oceania) remains largely missing in the global church. As a lay female, Pasifika Catholic early-career theologian who is a māmā and wife, I speak into the space of where many of my peers are grappling with binary discourse that to be Indigenous means to reject Christianity or being Christian is to reject Indigenous spiritualities. “Synodal life is not a strategy for organising the Church, but…being able to find a unity that embraces diversity without erasing it.” (IL, 2023, §49). The role of lay Indigenous theologians is important in the future of a synodal church and part of the living legacy of Vatican II.