Synodality as a method and model of unity of the Christian Churches, for a common response to the great challenges (global and local) of the present and the future.

Themes or Areas of Application

Person, Identity, Dignity, Body, Freedom, Human and Peoples' Rights.

Phases of the study

• First phase: theological and biblical foundation of synodality;
• Second phase: survey of the various experiences of synodality, their characteristics, qualities and limits pointed out; 
• Third phase: approach to synodality as a model of communion and a common instrument of Christian intervention; 
• Fourth phase: how to articulate the different Churches and how to discern the form, timing and objectives of common intervention; 
• Fifth phase: what kind of common intervention can be proposed to the different Churches.

Objectives/Activities

• Cycle of Conferences or Congress
• Book

Subject

The Common Response of the Christian Churches to the Great Challenges of Each Time 

Francis has stressed that the only way to be church in the 21st century is to be "synodal." What is meant by synodal? It is a word of Greek origin and means 'to walk together'. Truly, if, through Baptism, we are all members of the Church, then we must all participate, be heard, because what belongs to all for all must be decided and assumed.  The Church must be the result of a process that listens to and involves all the members of the great community of Christians, in order, after being inspired by the Holy Spirit, to bear witness to humanity, in its multiplicity of languages and cultures, to the new commandment of love and inclusion. 

According to Lima's document (1982), "synodality" has three dimensions: the "personal", the "collegial" and the "communitarian".

Today's problems are as complex as they are global, with planetary crises such as the health crisis, the environmental crisis, the economic and social crisis, the migration crisis, the refugee crisis, the crisis of international political institutions, the crisis of democracy, the crisis of minorities, the crisis of human exploitation or the religious crisis. Humanity has never faced so many and such serious threats as today, climate change; scattered wars; nuclear war; NBIC (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, artificial intelligence, cognitive sciences, neurosciences); digital battles; digital control by states; transgenic babies; experiments with hybrids; uncontrollable migrations; the techno-economic-political struggles for global supremacy; drugs; global structural injustice; the trampling of human rights.

The origin of the planet's great global problems is human, "anthropic" and, for this reason, Francis proposes urgent intervention in these areas of human life and the planet: 1. the global climate crisis; 2. the growing technocratic paradigm; 3. the fragility of international politics; 4. international conferences on the problems and the results to be expected; 5. Spiritual motivations: a "situated anthropocentrism".

To confront the fragility of world politics, Francis insists that "it is not enough to think about the balance of power, it is also necessary to respond to new challenges and to react with global mechanisms to environmental, health, cultural and social challenges, above all to consolidate respect for the most elementary human rights, social rights and care for our common home."

The French economist Gaël Giraud proposes that another type of economic globalization be proposed, with the necessary energy transition, and another type of globalization, which faces the viability of a shared world, structured by international institutions that are capable of taking charge of the world goods that belong to humanity: "the Amazon, the seabed,  the atmosphere, the fishing reserves, the fresh water, the space, among others. 

Contemporary globalization itself is, in the words of Ruy Blanes, "clothed in the multiplication of postures: transnational movement, global consciousness" incorporates "complexities, ironies and contradictions that, in essence, constitute it as a contemporary phenomenon. If, at first, we thought that globalization would result in a process of standardization, today we realize how wrong we were", because, for anthropologist James Ferguson, "contemporary globalization suggests, above all, an overlapping of spaces, enclaves and mobilities".

It may seem like an impossible utopia, but if the Christian churches were to propose it, as a starting point for a revolution of humanity, it would create the ethical and spiritual duty of humanity to commit itself. For Francis, it is necessary for every Christian to allow himself to be affected, so that then, in the words of the philosopher Hans Jonas, we move to act in such a way that the effects of our action are compatible with the permanence of an authentically human life on earth.

LusoGlobe Research in Charge

Luis Larcher

End

Abstract