Synod participants lament focus on ‘niche issues’ such as women’s ordination

ROME – Participants in this month’s Synod of Bishops on Synodality, who were chosen by the Vatican to take part in a news conference Friday, condemned what they said is an overly western agenda obsessed with “niche issues” such as women’s ordination, which, they said, takes attention away from other important topics.

Speaking during an Oct. 4 news briefing on the third day of the synod, Bishop Anthony Randazzo of Broken Bay and president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania lamented that, “So often we get caught up with niche issues that we talk about in Europe or in North America.”

Oftentimes, he said, these issues come from “churches and communities that have great wealth, great access to technology, and resources.”

“Those issues become all-consuming and focusing for people, to the point that they then become an imposition on people who sometimes struggle simply to feed their families, to survive the rising sea levels, or the dangerous journeys across wild oceans to resettle in new lands,” he said.

Randazzo called this “a new form of colonialism” that oppresses the vulnerable and which is “certainly not the mind of the synodal church in mission.”

While these niche issues are important and need to be discussed, he said, “they must not be so all-consuming to the point that others cannot live or exist on the face of this planet simply because people of might and power and authority and wealth decide that those niche issues are the most important ones.”

“Please, do not forget the most vulnerable, and remember, when you come to Oceania, you here in Europe are the periphery,” he said.

Randazzo is one of some 368 participants in this year’s Oct. 2-27 closing session of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, and represents the region of Oceania, which, he noted, covers a third of the planet and is home to some 41 million people, and is an extremely “fragile” environment.

This, he said, is due to both climate change and exploitation, as “people and organizations come in and they see minerals, precious metals, are very happy to embrace deep-sea mining, logging and enormous fishing ventures, depleting the oceans and the seas of so many of their resources.”

He spoke of regional challenges such as rising sea levels, migration, financial exploitation, and misguided efforts to protect the environment that are ultimately pursued “at the expense of the human beings who live on the planet.”

“It’s so easy for us to feel very comfortable in Europe or in North America. We forget sometimes that we have neighbors in Africa, in Asia, in South America, and the most vulnerable on the planet, in Oceania,” he said, stressing the importance of speaking on behalf of those who are “forgotten.”

Regarding the “niche issues” he mentioned, Randazzo said the first is “governance,” and that he often hears people in the church speak about restructuring offices and administration, but with business lingo.

“I have no problems whatsoever in the church with being transparent, being accountable, in being open, in being participatory,” he said, but added that, “I get very distressed, though, when I hear people start talking about networking. That’s business language.”

The church’s language, he said, “is communion, fellowship, community…and I hear the church using business models.”

“That’s niche, and it will be the death of us as a community because we are trying to become so sophisticated in our administration that we are becoming so narrow, that we are in fact excluding people from participatory models of a synodal church in mission,” he said.

Randazzo also condemned what he said was an overly western, niche focus on women’s ordination, which has been a primary discussion point throughout the three-year synod process.

Discussion on this particular issue “has been going on, and on, and on for years, not just for the synod,” he said, noting that the pope has asked for it to be studied on multiple occasions, and there is currently a study group dedicated to evaluating it right now.

This question has been set aside for the moment, “not to remove it from the conversation, but to go more deeply into it to see what’s actually there,” he said.

“When we talk about women in the church, that’s the hot-button issue, and as a consequence women in many parts of the world and the church who are treated as second-class citizens are totally ignored,” Randazzo said.

He called this “scandalous” for the church, “all because a small minority, with a large powerful wester voice, are obsessed with pushing this issue.”

“I have no problems with this issue being talked about and studied,” he said, but not at the cost of discussing women “pushed to the margins” who are living in situations of poverty and violence, who lack equal employment opportunities and who are excluded from church life.

This, he said, “is a scandal against the Gospel, and we must speak into this, rather than being obsessed always by this other issue.”

“Let the other issue be studied, but for heaven’s sake, in the name of Jesus, can we look after and include our women? Can we stop talking about women and listen to and speak with women? This is how the church is called to act,” he said.

Also present at Friday’s news briefing was Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero of Rabat, Morocco, who echoed the condemnation of an overly European agenda in the synod, telling journalists the synod is important because “it’s putting people from different continents” and ecclesial statures together at the same level.

“The pope has often said that the synod is too ‘Europeanized’ or that it is very Euro-centric, westernized. It’s true,” he said, saying the synod participants as part of the process must help the church to be “more catholic, more universal.”

Sister Xiskya Lucia Valladares Paguaga, Director of the Communication Department of the “Alberta Gimenez Higher Education Center” of the Comillas Pontifical University spoke about the importance of the church’s “digital mission” and having a presence online.

“Our world has changed. We’re aware that it’s not what it was 20 years ago,” she said, noting that in Europe churches are closing, whereas it is now the global south where the church is “making noise.”

Much of life is also now unfolding online, she said, stressing the importance of the “digital missionary” who accompanies the online community, whether they are believers or non-believers, practicing Catholics or lapsed.

“We believe that as a fundamental of synodality, the objective is for the world of today, not 20 years ago, so because of this we have to get to the people who have been wounded in life, also in digital streets,” she said, calling it a “marathon” in which the goal is to bring God’s tenderness and mercy to the online community.

Valladares said she believes there is still “a lot of ground to cover” in terms of establishing the church’s digital mission, but “awareness of the need is growing.”

Awareness also depends on the place, she said, noting that throughout Latin America, bishops conferences and dioceses are now establishing offices for the digital mission, which is essential to engaging young people, in particular, “who no longer go to parishes.”

Speaking of the often-toxic polarization of online social media platforms, Valladares said it is a reality that everyone lives with, but synodality “proposes a change of internal attitude, a personal change.”

“It’s not something that’s fast. This synod we will understand years after it closes. It’s much deeper than changing laws and structures, we have to change hearts,” she said, stressing the need to sow hope “in a very difficult world in which there are toxic relationships and that are also not seen as synodal inside of the church.”

The church, she said, “also needs to walk together, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, and this takes time.”

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