Sep 23, 2024
The Situation
St. Vincent de Paul Church has been a Baltimore institution since 1841 and is the oldest Roman Catholic parish in Baltimore to operate continuously in its original church structure. Rooted in Christ, it is committed to being a radically inclusive community radiating God’s love and compassion in Baltimore and beyond, challenging every person to embrace and celebrate their divine potential.
In 2022, Pope Francis in his documents for the Synod on Synodality called upon all Catholic dioceses to embark on a process of listening and discernment. St Vincent’s felt a special investment and call to this process. Since they were also wanting to start a journey of deep self discovery and discernment, St. Vincent believed the Synodal process and invitation was an opportunity to both serve their local church and the world Church. They entered this work with enthusiasm.
There is a storm over the church; we don’t know how it will turn out. This listening project is a good step… and gives me hope. (member)
The Synod asked St. Vincent’s to discern how they were “living the faith” and how they, as Church, were achieving this together. As a result, they instituted a comprehensive listening project to hear each other receptively, relinquishing the tendency to deflect, debate, or defend. They collected heartfelt opinions and experiences, as well as the hopes and fears, the dreams and frustrations of its community.
The Journey
Global Learning Partners was invited to help design and facilitate a thoughtful, respectful, fully inclusive process resulting in a final Synodal Report. The hope was to offer a place for “truth-telling” about the Church today and vision for the Church of the future.
To ensure a thoughtful process that yielded rich fruit for thought and action, the following steps were taken:
- An Editorial Group was created. This 8-person team was selected from the community to offer a validating eye to themes identified in the data by GLP and to decide the important messages for the final Synodal Report.
- A Synod Team was created. This 6-member team met at least twice a week for three+ months to plan the Synodal process.
The Synodal Team with GLP had the following goals for its work:
- To ensure all voices connected to St. Vincent’s are heard – those presently part of the parish and those from the past; those who attend regularly on Sunday and those who do not; those whose voice we especially needed or wanted to hear; those whom we serve and those who serve.
- To invite everyone into deep listening to the Holy Spirit.
- To collect generative themes, wisdom, and insights for the Church as well as for the community as a gateway to understanding.
- To collect personal stories, realizing how the Holy Spirit speaks to us through our experiences.
- To dream big about the future of the Catholic Church, discerning what the Holy Spirit is calling us to be.
St. Vincent’s mapped out a variety of ways to engage in the process:
- Focus Groups. These groups were intentionally offered multiple times to maximize the number of people involved. In addition to the 9 parish-wide focus groups, special population groups were organized to ensure high safety and respect.
- Interview. For some marginalized individuals personal conversations were seen as more respectful and effective.
- Prayer Prompts. ‘Prayer prompts’ were a way to allow parishioners time to discern what the Holy Spirit was telling them about the 10 Thematic Nuclei of the Synodal Process. They were delivered via email twice per week for 8 weeks for a total of 16 prompts.
- Parish Survey. A general survey was sent via email to all parishioners and others receiving our weekly newsletter. The survey included questions about their experience at St. Vincent de Paul as well as questions about the larger Catholic Church.
The Impact
First and foremost, St. Vincent’s sent its 13-page Synodical Report “Letting Our Voices Be Heard” to the Vatican in response to its invitation.
Change is coming, and this Synod is a good way to empower the laity, who represent the future of the Church. Those in “power” will need a conversion of heart to become servants to the poor, the oppressed and all of us. Otherwise, the Church will continue down a path of dwindling numbers, lack of priests and eventual irrelevancy. (member of St. Vincent’s)
Much was learned by St. Vincent’s itself. The experience offered much to consider for future planning, leadership, investment and growth. Below are some of the areas explored, exposed, and explained:
- Church hierarchy
- Inclusivity
- How to ask for forgiveness for wrongdoing
- Women in office
- Church and youth in the church
- How do we serve our neighbor
- The importance of Mass and communion
- Human sexuality
- Being true to our tradition while changing with the times
In general, the biggest impact of this initiative was helping to build a culture of listening to understand, where truth-telling is desired, questioning is encouraged, challenging the status quo is valued, and deep discernment is an ongoing journey. GLP was humbled to have walked alongside.
