This panel begins with Kevin Considine's call for a Church with an "orthopathemic imagination" to prioritize the healing of the "sinned-against," in his paper "An 'Orthopathemic' Imagination?" Shifting from the orthopathemic to orthopraxis, Jeannine Hill Fletcher draws on her 2025 book, Grace of the Ghosts, to address Catholic complicity in White supremacy and the necessity of reparations. Stephen McNulty similarly explores orthopraxis, but from the perspective of synodality and the positive valuing of non-parrhesiastic speech, as a tool for the marginalized, in his paper, "Living with the In-Between." Finally, in "Synodality under Pressure," Pantelis Levakos, invites the difficult but necessary conversations on Christian nationalism. Drawing on political theology and Orthodox conciliar tradition, and engaging Catholic and Anglican synodal contexts, he proposes authentic Synodality requires ascetical resistance to ideological capture.
During his pontificate, Pope Francis invoked the image of the Church as "field hospital" in a world that is facing ever-expanding threats to human dignity and the common good. In 2026, one foundation for this ecclesiology is a trauma-informed Church with an "orthopathemic imagination" in its complex ministries ad extra and ad intra. An "orthopathemic imagination" refers to a diversely-inculturated, ecclesial spirituality that prioritizes healing for the "sinned-against" while allowing God's Spirit to create new futures for all: victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and those enmeshed in complicity. Rooted in the healing ministry of Jesus, this imagination moves beyond mere orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxis (right action) to a deeper foundation in an orthopathema (right suffering) for the sinned-against that draws insights from restorative practices such as Circle Keeping.
This paper outlines steps for initiating conversations on institutional complicity in the evils of White supremacy. Drawn from the research of a new book (Grace of the Ghosts: A Theology of Institutional Reparation (Fordham University Press, 2025), this paper centers a method of knowing our institutional histories as the foundation for navigating complicities both past and present. Audience members will be introduced to ways of leveraging research in the archives with microhistories that might open a space for difficult conversations.
The Catholic Church’s recent embrace of synodality has drawn renewed attention to the discursive postures which enable ecclesial conversation and conversion across difference, including an especially helpful recovery of parrhesia as a tool for the synodal church. This paper hopes to further that conversation by offering a positive evaluation of non-parrhesiastic speech in ecclesial contexts, with special attention to strategic ambiguity, selective self-disclosure, and code-switching as tools for marginalized people. Drawing on the feminist reclamation of "gossip" and Jesus's own variety of discursive postures in the Gospel of John, the paper argues for attention to non-normative and sometimes stigmatized approaches to speech, frankness, and secrecy as sites for the power-building which makes parrhesiastic speech possible. It then applies this framework to LGBTQ+ people in non-affirming settings and argues that the strategic ambiguity queer people have used to survive and navigate non-affirming churches can offer helpful lessons to the synodal project.
The resurgence of Christian nationalist movements across American, European, and Orthodox civilizational contexts has reshaped internal church life by recoding theological disagreement as cultural warfare. Debates over women’s leadership, migration, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and colonial accountability increasingly serve as boundary markers of loyalty rather than spaces for discernment. In this context, Synodality risks becoming either a procedural performance or another battlefield of polarisation.
This paper argues that Christian nationalism represents not simply a political alignment but a theological distortion; a sacralization of grievance in which fear masquerades as fidelity and memory is weaponised. Drawing on political theology and Orthodox conciliar tradition, and engaging Catholic and Anglican synodal contexts, it proposes that authentic Synodality requires ascetical resistance to ideological capture.
Unless authority is reconfigured as self-limiting, kenotic service and vulnerable voices are safeguarded rather than instrumentalised, Synodal processes will mirror the very polarisations they seek to heal, turning communion into another site of contestation.