Plenary Matters S4 Ep 5: Finding new words for a modern church

Here's a chance to hear a qualitatively different voice and tone reflecting the Church's possible future--listen and see if you agree.

Professor Anna Rowlands is a political theologian helping to shape the future of the Catholic Church. She presented the pope’s 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti at the Vatican and now she's been seconded from her university to work with the global synod team as well as supporting the Vatican’s research on politics, economics, climate and migration.

Ahead of the release of the synod working document that will set the agenda for the October meeting in Rome, she speaks with Geraldine about Francis’ vision to bring the separate voices of the church together. It’s not a papal diversity and inclusion strategy, although lay women and men will participate in this synod for the first time. But it does demand a new quality of encounter, one which is unafraid of conflict and fragility and can cope with mess! This is the ‘pearl of great price’ she says is what is personally being asked of us all.

You can watch the press conference and find the working document on the synod website.

Further reading:

• 'Synod preparations show the Church is fracturing, perhaps even imploding’ in La Croix
• Massimo Faggioli’s article, 'A Synod that's less episcopal, but perhaps more papal?'
• Article in Jesuit magazine America, ‘Could you explain what the Synod on Synodality is to a 10-year-old?’

Join the conversation at the Facebook page Plenary Matters or email plenarymatters2021@gmail.com