Synodality and Catholic Schools: Summary Notes

Synodality and Its Implications for Catholic Schools

Introduction

The Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod defines synodality as the Church's way of journeying together, assembling, and actively participating in its evangelizing mission.
The purpose of synodality is to inspire hope, trust, relationships, and resourcefulness.
The study explores how Pope Francis’s vision for a synodal Church can impact Catholic schools in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories (NWT).
It examines the relationship between Catholic schools and the local church within a faith-based framework of collaboration and synergy.
The study reports on how system leaders (chief superintendents) perceive the present and future of public Catholic schooling in Western Canada in relation to synodality.
It concludes with considerations for Catholic schools and how synodality can renew their mission.

Synodality: Four Commitments

Pope Francis's vision of synodality advances the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
Richard Gaillardetz identifies four commitments to synodality:
- Transformed Ecclesial Relationships
- A Church Moving Outward
- Focus on the Essentials of the Christian Faith
- Authentic Exercise of Authority

Transformed Ecclesial Relationships

Synodality requires transformed ecclesial relationships, prioritizing baptism as the source of vocation and Christian identity.
Pope Francis emphasizes Vatican II’s universal call to holiness over a clerical Church.
He has instituted new ministries, like the catechist, to broaden roles and decision-making.
Leaders are called to serve all of God’s people and promote an “ethics of vulnerability”.
A focus on transformed relationships allows trust in the sensus fidei of the people.

A Missionary Church

The Pope is committed to a Church that moves outward and engages the world through a “culture of encounter.”
A “culture of encounter” means being passionate about meeting others, seeking points of contact, building bridges, and including everyone.
God’s mercy is personally encountered in one’s neighborhood through friendship and assistance.
This vision counters consumerism, the technological paradigm, xenophobia, and neoliberal global capitalism.
Catholic social teaching acts as a counterpoint to restore social trust.
The Church should proclaim its message and accompany others on their journey.
A mindset that moves Catholic leadership outside the parish walls is crucial for a mission-driven identity.

Focus on the Essentials of the Christian Faith

Pope Francis wants preaching directed toward the core of the Christian faith, where doctrines lead to a relationship with Christ.
This approach focuses on the kerygma as the early Church’s initial proclamation of faith.
This approach is more understandable for a broader audience, especially the poor and marginalized, and less aimed at the educated elites.
Francis emphasizes the Gospel message in contrast to rule enforcement.
The Holy Father has argued for an encultured Christian message so that the gospel can be respected and understood in different contexts.

Authentic Exercise of Authority

Francis's fourth commitment to synodality is based on “the authentic exercise of authority . . . guided by the principle of subsidiarity”.
Subsidiarity encourages local decision-making based on the centrality of baptism for the Christian vocation.
Fulfillment of the Church’s mission is the concern of clergy, the Vatican, lay people, and the local church.
The move to decentralize runs the risk of downplaying the spiritual identity of the Church.
A synod should not become a “parliament” but should be led by the Spirit.
The "dictatorship of functionalism" creates a system that follows reasoned advice and teachings but forgets the Christian announcement.
Making the Church more collaborative and less clericalized will increase engagement and improve psychological safety.

Context: Western Canadian Separate Catholic Schools

Constitutionally-protected, denominational schooling rights were included in the British North America Act of 1867.
Catholic schools in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the NWT were able to form school divisions in the same district as public schools.
These schools provided an education that supported the beliefs and values of parents and their local Church.
Catholic schools globally follow various governance models dependent upon context.
The schools today maintain many structural similarities to local public schools, which are primarily areligious or secular.
Catholic schools in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the NWT are fully-funded by their provincial or territorial governments and adhere to government mandates.
Catholic school board trustees provide oversight for the schools’ long-term success and accept the local bishop as the leader of Catholic education.
The schools welcome both Catholic and non-Catholic families, as demanded by the State and the Church.
School boundaries do not generally follow local parish boundaries, which can complicate intra-church relationships.
The ownership of the land that the schools sit on is a complex situation: the Church has no ownership of the land, yet the school’s board of trustees is responsible to care for the property and to respect the authority of the bishop.
This Catholic schooling system in Western Canada contains its own distinctive governance model, which includes elected, appointed, employed, and state partners.
The schools are authentically Catholic by:
- Teaching religion classes which are accredited toward graduation.
- Celebrating Masses and other liturgies.
- Promoting the reception of sacraments among the student body.
- Permeating the curriculum with the Christian faith.
- Preferentially hiring Catholic candidates.
Local bishops endorse the schools as “Catholic”, provide an advisory voice in their governance, and approve the religious education programming.
Catholic school superintendents and trustees also belong to special Catholic associations that advocate and support publicly-funded separate schooling.
This religious schooling system serves over one quarter of the preK–12 student population, amounting to over 230,000 students in over 600 schools.
These separate Catholic schools have one foot in the public square and the other in the parish courtyard.
The mixed sources of support mean that changes brought about by synodality may very well look different from those felt in parishes and other ecclesial agencies.
The paper determines how and where system leaders practiced synodality in their leadership and speculates how a synodal approach can assist in strengthening Catholic schools by following the four-fold synodal commitment framework as articulated by Gaillardetz.

Materials and Methods

The article draws from research completed for a larger study describing the challenges and opportunities that face Catholic schools in Western Canada according to chief school superintendents.
Insight from educational leaders provides an opportunity to examine division structures and programs in Catholic schools from a privileged vantagepoint.
Chief superintendents are hired solely by the school board trustees, must follow the direction of the Minister of Education and the School Act, and consult with local bishops.
The study included ten superintendents, all baptized Catholics, who demonstrated an ability to maneuver in both educational and ecclesial circles.
This article takes data from the above exploratory study, which focused on a small group of top experts in their field, and mirrors the approach of other exploratory studies.
The superintendents have specialized knowledge about, and much responsibility for, Catholic schools.
A list of fifteen questions were shared with the participants prior to the interview, as the interview itself was semi-structured.
The interviews lasted from 50 to 90 minutes.
The recordings were sent to a professional transcriber.
The transcripts were reviewed for accuracy by the researcher and each participant, and then underwent a thematic analysis to identify and interpret patterns across the data set.
The theme of synodality became the focus of the paper.
The study received ethical approval from the primary investigator’s home university’s research ethics board.

Results

Chief superintendents showed a commitment toward building communities of strong relationships, an interest toward participation in ecclesial activities, and a desire to foster the faith-based mission of their schools.
The study occurred in the midst of the synod diocesan phase, of which some superintendents were directly involved, and Synodality was modeled personally by Pope Francis during his papal visit to Canada in July 2022.
Synodality appears to mark the leadership styles of these superintendents, but subtle differences and a lack of clarity remain.

Reshaping Relationships

A synodal church “requires transformed ecclesial relationships”, where ecclesial leaders prioritize baptism as the source of vocation, the universal call to holiness for all people, and listening and service to others as a central criterion for leadership.
The importance and primacy of relationships was clearly a priority for every superintendent.
Conversations with other educators deepened relationships and created a common language of faith.
Building trust was a foundation for positive relationships.
Acts of faith build community.
Prayer and rituals strengthened relational bonds opening space for a culture of encounter.
Conversations about faith cultivated stronger relationships but can be challenged by students asking hard spiritual questions of teachers.
Life-giving conversations lay the foundation for building a strong sense of community, which was important for welcoming all students.
Cultivating genuine relationships comes from knowing each other.
Superintendents overall endorsed strong relationships nurtured by belief in a transcendent God, who could create bonds of friendship and understanding through vulnerability and faithfulness.

A Missionary Church

For Francis, a missionary Church is one that moves outward and into a broken world.
Schools have multiple points of connection to the Church and are also interwoven with the secular education world.
The pandemic created spaces where a culture of encounter was not only needed but became intentionally engaged.
School leadership and educational partners tried to understand a deeper sense of illness and dis-ease and worked with staff on “accompanying mental health and wellness” issues.
There are challenges of participating in a culture of encounter, as school districts have staff of all faiths working in their schools.
All staff, including non-Catholics, are contractually obligated to participate in school faith formation.
There is a real challenge to communicate faith, and a need to clearly articulate how Catholic schools are distinct to maintain viability.
Engaging teachers and parents in formal school reviews enabled voices outside of leadership and helped to build a culture of understanding.
Visits to schools revealed a global student body.
Tensions exist between church teaching and mainstream society, particularly regarding the LGBTQ community.
The superintendents endorsed Catholic schools as welcoming places.
They sought to encounter and listen to others, seeking to improve the lives of students and staff, and could also feel cultural tensions over politically-charged issues of the day.

Focus on the Essentials of the Christian Faith

Francis wants a synodal church to focus on the essentials of the Christian faith rather than on doctrinal or moral certitude and seeks an accessible message for all people.
Teacher faith formation can be overly complicated, and staff members want a less technical examination of faith and sought a practical application of it.
Students can ask some difficult questions of a theological nature that religion teachers cannot handle well.
Superintendents supported the teaching of religion and their school districts’ faith formation programs.
Some hoped that there would be an evolution of an understanding of church teaching; others admitted that on some moral issues they could not simply meet in the middle between the Church and mainstream social views.
A major challenge is that some teachers appear to be Catholic only in name, which leads to a lack of authenticity and believing that the catholicity piece is simply an add-on.
Schools try to “make our school communities places permeated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and love” while being “welcoming of all faiths,” which can water down the essentials of faith if not done well.
Staff and individual teachers were asked to set goals and review how faith was being actualized in their schools and classrooms to make faith more practical.
The benefit of a Catholic school over a public school is that the faith-based school can examine the purpose behind everything and have a lens by which we see the world.
There appears to be no single answer among superintendents regarding Francis’s kerygmatic inspiration in the schools, as contexts and needs vary significantly.

Attentive to Local Decision-Making

Francis’s vision of synodality tries to be more attentive to local decision-making as inspired by the principle of subsidiarity, including input from lay people and the local church.
The superintendents acknowledged the authority of the local bishop within Catholic schooling, and many expressed a positive relationship while others were not as positive or did not have much to say.
Superintendents described functioning inside a bureaucratic reality that contains different kinds of authority.
The authority of the Church exists in tension with, or in addition to, the prevailing secular values and professional teaching requirements.
The authority of the Church, through the role of the Bishop and the parish priest, is necessary for the Catholic school to thrive.
Society generally shows little respect for the authority of the Church and its bishops, and there are low churchgoing rates among students and teachers.
The complex social roles of superintendents appear to succeed most with a listening, dialogical stance toward the educational community.
Francis’s call for greater attentiveness to the principle of subsidiarity gives support to the leadership style of the superintendents, while obedience to episcopal authority was sometimes less than wholehearted.

Discussion

Moments of vulnerability, fear, commitment, helplessness, and empowerment were expressed within the research relationship, mirroring the type of dialogue Pope Francis endorses.
The pontiff remains dedicated to a collaborative, synergistic form of leadership that is uniquely Christian and inclusive.
The section is divided into the four synodal commitments to understand possible implications for Catholic schooling.

A Re-Examination of Relationships Leads to Change

Pope Francis’s call to synodality asks leaders to re-examine and reshape relationships inside the Church.
Catholic schools in Western Canada are heavily influenced by government regulations and professional associations.
Cultivating effective relationships is necessary in the face of the temptation to follow a technological mindset or fashionable ideologies.
A synodal approach counters by asking for deep listening to others and attentiveness to the Spirit, seeking deeper truths through repentance, openness, and a willingness to respond.
Interviewed superintendents believed that their vulnerability and faithfulness forged communal bonds.
A relational perspective underlined an inclusivist approach, where all students were welcome in their schools.
Francis reminds us that at times God’s Spirit seems adversarial, requiring careful examination of disruption to the status quo.
Renewal of relations is necessary for a real response to the issues faced, and a process of deep listening among administrators, trustees, and bishops is vital.
The danger here lies in system leaders who might see nothing new in synodality.
Relationships need to be built upon the method of dialogue called a “conversation in the Spirit,” a potential model for co-responsible decision-making.
Spiritual conversations could prove to be the most meaningful approach, given the complexity of decision-making they are often faced with.
Relationships, rooted in the model of spiritual conversations, serve as a means to