E D Understanding Families as Gifts rather than as Problems How Have You Experienced the Synodal Process in General? G enerally speaking, I experienced the synodal process as extremely interesting, encouraging, helpful, exhausting and hopeful. Having had experience of formulating a similar consultation process within England and Wales in 2004, it was fascinating to observe and participate in the methodology adopted by the Synod Secretariat for the universal church. It was intriguing to see how people responded to this method and then to see what the Secretariat made of the synthesized reports from around the world. Being in the midst of the initial consultation made many demands on our “people skills”: “Yes, the language (of the questions) is difficult but please do persevere, out of faith and in hope, because your story too is important to hear.” But it was also a privileged opportunity in which to respect and be grateful to all those who took time to get involved. Most of all, the information generated in the consultations was both extremely interesting and extraordinarily useful pastorally. It painted an upto-date picture of the situation of church and family today which included a good proportion of insights from “lapsed” Catholics. There were messages of deep sadness and real joy in the responses, some humour and also, sadly, in some, a strong sense of attrition. The focus of the church on family matters was encouraging and helpful in that it gave us a much broader platform and constituency into which to speak our experience, since 2004, of explicitly responding to families’ expressed needs in our strategies of pastoral accompaniment. Handling the data, especially that from the initial consultation, was exhausting. Christmas holidays disappeared as we worked on cleaning up over 30,000 online responses, deleting those without any content, sorting and sending information from overseas respondents to the appropriate bishops’ conferences in 57 countries. Accompanying our own dioceses as they prepared their reports, and then synthesizing the final report from England and Wales, all made demands on internal capacity which meant that some of our existing priorities simply had to be put on hold. Amongst these delayed projects is a proposal to develop online formation for marriage and family ministry. INTAMS review 22, 67-70. doi: 10.2143/InT.22.1.3159719 © 2016 by InTAMS review. All rights reserved 67 InTAMS review 22 (2016) What Were Your Expectations and Hopes during this Process and What Have You Seen Realized so Far? My expectations and hopes were that some of the tensions between elements of the teaching of the Church and the reality of some families’ lives might be addressed, not necessarily by changing teaching, but by reconsidering the discipline of the Church in its pastoral accompaniment of families in difficult situations. I hoped for fresh language with which to attract families and reassure them that the Church has a strong heart for them. I felt that the questions asked in the Lineamenta (for the Extraordinary Synod) reflected a wise understanding of the issues, facing up to difficult pastoral issues (such as the situation of children of parents in “irregular” marriages) whilst reaffirming the importance of loving families. I think it is a real pity that some of the problems associated with that consultation undermined people’s trust in the process. I would have liked, in the best of all possible worlds, the opportunity to have reformulated the questions in order to make them more comprehensible locally. nevertheless, progress has, I think, been made in terms of moving towards a church environment conducive to family flourishing – the Year of Mercy for example – though much of this, so far, is a result of what Pope Francis has said. We “on the ground” need to do much more to make real these opportunities for family ministry. This is not without its own challenges, in terms of resourcing lay leadership and having clarity of purpose, and of vision. I had hoped for more recognition of the practitioner experience in the synod process. Between laity and bishops there are many qualified and experienced lay people mediating the teaching alongside their pastors and giving it practical expression as parish and diocesan family ministers. Their voices have not as yet been fully heard. Since the 1980 synod on family a body of authorized experience has developed which one would have expected to inform some of these synods’ deliberations. I am thinking especially of the US Bishops’ Decade on the Family, launched in 1980 and underpinned by a tranche of resources including an overarching pastoral plan rooted in the Church’s vision of marriage and family life. Its core process is synodal. What have we learned from this and similar more recent church initiatives on behalf of the family that could help us as we move forward now? Has the Whole Process Contributed to Make the Gospel’s Life-Giving Message on Marriage and the Family Shine ever more Brightly, both within and outside the Church? The synodal process has given an excellent opportunity for this, with the material from Pope Francis’ General Audiences being especially important, together with his speeches during his visit to the United States and the World 68 E. Davies Meeting of Families. Over the months since October 2013 there have been some significant additions to our appreciation of family theology, most particularly in Francis’ closing speech to the Extraordinary Synod. Here he identified a number of temptations into which we can all be drawn in our pastoral accompaniment of marriage and family life. If one considers the obstacles or factors which inhibit family ministry, these temptations are a good starting point. On a local level the number of opportunities to speak and write about family over these last months has dramatically increased. The opportunity to deliver good news about marriage and family life and to introduce practical resources that parishes may be unaware of, has been a very important outcome and a quite unprecedented bonus. What Should Be the Church’s and our own Priorities in the Years to Come? Both specific and more general priorities are suggested by the synods. Specifically, the priority of supporting the further development of parish pastoral councils seems wise if a synodal church is to become a reality. The development of simple methods through which to regularly consult the laity, incorporating prayerful reflection on marriage and family life, would also support the journeying together that Pope Francis envisages. The publication of pre-synod consultation data is to be recommended since this important pastoral information still deserves – demands? – a local response. Also, specifically, there is a need to develop more holistic approaches to serving families for the occasions when they approach the parish church or school. Here in England and Wales we have been working on a framework which begins to identify the personal, spiritual, relational needs of families at specific stages, together with strategies and resources to meet those needs. It is not an exhaustive framework but then, practically speaking, it is often more effective to start with limited options. Family ministry soon reveals to those involved it’s propensity to become complex, a complexity which can sometimes paralyse even the best-intentioned efforts. More broadly, the definition of family ministry as expressed by the bishops at the 1980 synod on family – an activity of the whole People of God in local communities – requires all of us to revisit our baptismal vocation, and the baptismal vocation of our sisters and brothers in Christ. How can we concretely help each other to realise the ways God is calling us to holiness, through our loving service of one another and of God, in and through our family lives? What knowledge, skills and understanding do we need to reach out and accompany families other than our own and how are we to develop these? Can we face up to and heal the very deep anxieties that frequently pervade our church conversations on family, in the parish, the deanery and the diocese? The temptations noted by Francis give us, I think, a good starting point for discerning some of these anxieties, but 69 IntaMs review 22 (2016) more investment is called for in adult formation for lay participation in ministry and also for collaborative models of ministry. to those ends the development of local formation opportunities will be of key importance. the challenge today is not so much the knowledge of the Church’s teaching but its practical application in difficult situations. Moreover, there are ways in which we minister with families that are more effective in engaging families than are other ways. Language is one issue. Our starting place is another, particularly whether we understand family as gift or problem. But until the practitioner voices are fully heard and meditated upon, until they can inform the strategic development of pastoral accompaniment, we will very likely continue trying to reinvent wheels at best, or at worst, persisting with unhelpful family ministry practices. Elizabeth Davies is Marriage & Family Life Project Officer at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. she is currently in the final stages of doctoral research into the role of the diocesan coordinator of family ministry and is also pro-bono chair of Family Caring trust, which produces community resources to support parents, couples and young people. 70