Father Iván Montelongo, a priest from the Diocese of El Paso, Texas; Bishop Daniel Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas; and Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne/South Bend, Indiana, discuss the Synod on Synodality at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' fall meeting in Baltimore on Nov. 14, 2023. / Credit: Joe Bukuras/CNA

Baltimore, Md., Nov 15, 2023 / 13:15 pm (CNA).

U.S. bishops are hoping for further guidance from the Vatican before they formulate concrete plans to prepare for the final stage of the Synod on Synodality next fall.

At the conclusion of the synod’s first assembly that took place at the Vatican between Oct. 4–29, delegates approved a 42-page synthesis document titled “A Synodal Church in Mission” containing more than 80 proposals, including recommendations aimed at giving lay Catholics a greater role in decision-making.

The preliminary document did not, however, specify the next steps that dioceses and episcopal conferences should take during the interim period before the synod reconvenes in October 2024.

On Tuesday during the fall assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Baltimore, two of the synod delegates — Bishop Daniel Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, and Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana — emphasized the need for an “executive summary” of the synthesis document to help guide continuing engagement with U.S. Catholics.

“When you think about it being a 41-page document, how are we going to consult people? Are they going to read 41 pages?” Rhoades said during a Nov. 14 press conference with Flores.

“At this point, I think we do need to identify exactly or more clearly what are the big items that we really need to have the input of the faithful. And I think that’s a work in progress because maybe the Vatican is going to provide those for us,” he said.

“We don’t know yet. If not, I mean, we have to get moving, so we may have to do it ourselves,” he added.

Flores agreed that the USCCB might have to produce its own summary if the Vatican doesn’t provide one soon. Asked if there was a timeline for when additional steps need to be taken, he said it was premature to formulate a schedule.

“To be honest, I don’t think we’ve gotten to the timeline stage yet because it is still fairly recent,” Flores said.

The synod’s synthesis document was the fruit of the delegates’ small-group discussions of issues raised in these listening sessions. The document calls for greater “co-responsibility” among all members of the Church and recommends specific steps to take and proposals to consider to achieve that goal.

Bishops: Not enough voices were heard

Pope Francis initiated the Synod on Synodality in October 2021, kicking off a multiyear worldwide Church effort to engage in listening sessions with Catholics. The faithful were asked to submit feedback to their local dioceses on the question “What steps does the Spirit invite us to take in order to grow in our ‘journeying together?’”

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, had noted at last month’s synod that only 1% of Catholics participated in the listening sessions.

“One thing we have to do going forward is to encourage greater participation and invite people to partake and engage in this process of speaking, and listening and praying together,” Broglio said in October, adding: “That would be a source of growth for the Church.”  

Flores echoed these sentiments Tuesday, calling for a greater variety of voices to be heard as the synodal process continues.

“The voice of the pastors and the priests was not heard as clearly as we need to hear it, “ Flores said. “I think we all, as bishops, will get an encouragement to kind of find the vehicle by which, with their priests, they can reflect on what this document says as we prepare for going forward.”

“But they’re not the only ones. We all admitted that because it was our first sort of effort that we could do a lot better in consulting with the peripheral materially poorer. It’s because it’s hard, because you’re not always going to get a welcome,” the bishop of Brownsville said.

In his remarks, Flores said he expects to send some “resources” out to bishops and dioceses before the U.S. bishops’ conference in June.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somalia-born American activist, writer, and politician and is known for her views critical of Islam and supportive of women's rights. / Credit: Christian Marquardt/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Nov 13, 2023 / 17:04 pm (CNA).

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a longtime critic of Islam and for years an outspoken atheist, said this week that she is “now a Christian,” stating she came to the religion both as part of a spiritual journey and as a response to the “nihilistic vacuum” of the modern world. 

Hirsi Ali has long been a prominent critic of Islam. As a young girl growing up in Somalia, she suffered female genital mutilation in Somalia as a young girl and in 2002 renounced her Muslim faith and declared herself an atheist. In the years since she has been a vocal critic of what she sees as extremist violence and intolerance from many Muslims. 

In an essay published Monday on the British website UnHerd, she said that although she identified as an atheist for over two decades, she now considers herself a member of the Christian religion. 

She wrote that she turned to Christianity in part “because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable — indeed very nearly self-destructive.” 

“Atheism failed to answer a simple question: What is the meaning and purpose of life?” she said, arguing that “the void left by the retreat of the church” in the modern world “has merely been filled by a jumble of irrational quasi-religious dogma.”

Hirsi Ali said in the essay that there is “no need to look for some new-age concoction of medication and mindfulness” to address these present crises: “Christianity has it all.”

Another reason she made that switch, she said, is “global”: The writer said in the essay that “Western civilization is under threat” from multiple fronts including Russia and China, “global Islamism,” and “woke ideology.”

“We endeavor to fend off these threats with modern, secular tools: military, economic, diplomatic, and technological efforts to defeat, bribe, persuade, appease, or surveil,” she wrote. “And yet, with every round of conflict, we find ourselves losing ground.”

Hirsi Ali said the only way to successfully “fight off” these threats is to answer the question “What is it that unites us?” 

The “only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” she said; that legacy includes an “elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom, and dignity.”

The writer said that she considers herself a “lapsed atheist,” writing: “I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity.”

“I discover a little more at church each Sunday,” she wrote, arguing that she has found “a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer.”

Hirsi Ali did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday regarding her essay.

The recipient of numerous awards for her global activism, Hirsi Ali previously served in the House of Representatives in the Netherlands and has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University as well as the American Enterprise Institute.