Post-Rome Reflection

During my time in Rome, I held a number of titles: journalist, pilgrim, student leader, and designated spokesperson, among others. However, it was through my experience as a young woman in the Church that I was most deeply moved. 

Discussion with Delegates: Making Space for Young Voices 

Throughout the weeks I spent in Rome, I had many opportunities to engage in conversation with voting Synod delegates from all walks of life.  

In the past, Synod delegates have only been bishops and Cardinals. However, this Synod has been opened to groups which more accurately represent Catholicism worldwide. Though still officially labeled a “Synod of Bishops,” I had the opportunity to talk with voting Sisters, laywomen, priests, and laymen from all over the world. There are 70 non-Bishop members voting in the Synod, and half of them are women. The youngest delegate, Wyatt Olivas, a college student from Wyoming, is just twenty years old, with a vote that counts in equal proportion to that of the Cardinals and bishops.  

As a young person, I have witnessed many of my peers experience harm within the Church, or discern their way out of organized religion as a whole. It’s important to me to recognize this harm, but also to demonstrate through my own actions that faith can be something life-giving and holistically nourishing. In order to move forward as an intergenerational Church, I believe that we have to demonstrate not only to young people, but to older generations as well, that not only is the Church open to the idea of young leadership, it desperately needs it. Watching young people like myself, both voting delegates and members of delegations such as CENTERS, offers great hope for reconciliation. 

In the spirit of synodality, many of our group encounters with delegates took place over the breaking of bread. CENTERS students from each of our fourteen representative institutions met with a small number of delegates over dinner, engaging in conversation about the delegates’ experiences of synodality as well as our own. Sharing a meal as a diverse group of people representing and celebrating our universal Church, I felt very concretely the need for what Fr. Ivan Montelongo, a young U.S. delegate, named as “a conversion to synodality.”  

Later that week, CENTERS hosted a lunch for female CENTERS students and women of the Synod, affectionately referred to throughout the Assembly as “Synodal Mothers.” Kelly Paget, a voting laywoman from Australia, shared the unique challenge of being the only woman at her table. (The Synod requires that each table include at least one woman.) One pattern she noticed throughout her time in the Synod hall was that women were disproportionately being nominated as their table’s rapporteur: in essence, a notetaker that had fewer opportunities to voice an opinion. However, Kelly also shared the tangible hope that she received simply from being a part of a community of women bringing the concerns and hopes of women worldwide to such an unprecedented event.  

On the last evening of the CENTERS trip, we had the opportunity to engage in a televised conversation with the Secretariat of the Synod in the Synod Hall. The panel consisted of Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, Cardinal Mario Grech, Sr. Leticia Salazar, and Bishop Daniel Flores. Throughout the week, we had prepared questions that were representative of our respective communities, and it was such a joy to be able to bring our hopes and questions directly to the Synod Hall. As young adults, many of our questions focused on the theme of synodality as a method of embracing the gifts of young people and those on the margins. All four of the panelists expressed a deep gratitude for the synodal process and the urgent need for a “listening Church.” “Listening makes us better sharers of the Gospel,” said Bishop Flores in response to a question about the relationship between tradition and lived experience. Sr. Leticia expanded on Bishop Flores’ point, saying that “experience transforms us.”  

Our last question asked the panelists how they had experienced spiritual conversion throughout the Synodal Process. In Cardinal Grech’s response, he commented: “Over the past 3 years I have learned more and more that I am incomplete.”  

From the perspective of a young woman in the process of discerning her role in the global Church, this perfectly encapsulates the idea of a Synodal model of faith. I dream of a place in which we can acknowledge our own incompleteness, as we journey together towards a Church whose wholeness comes from the unique movements of the Holy Spirit in the unique experiences of all the People of God.  

Walking With St. Phoebe: The Voices of Diaconal Women 

A particular and a personal joy of my pilgrimage was discovering and cultivating a devotion to St. Phoebe, a first-century woman named as a deacon of the early Church, a friend of St. Paul, an emissary who delivered and preached Paul’s Letter to the Romans to the city of Rome, and the patroness of Discerning Deacons.  

On October 3rd, our delegation hosted a public St. Phoebe prayer service at the San Lorenzo Youth Center. We began with a procession from St. Peter’s Square, holding both traditional and modern icons of St. Phoebe and other saints, and singing the Synod prayer: “Adsumus Sanctus Spiritus. (Come, Holy Spirit)” The event, which several voting delegates attended, was the culmination of several years of Zoom prayer services on the third of the month celebrating the contributions of women like Phoebe whose stories are often excluded from the lectionary and the public understanding of Biblical women. 

Our prayer service was a sacred space of testimony and listening to the movement of the Holy Spirit. Speaking with holy conviction, women from across the world shared the joy of ministry and the grief of a God-given call going unacknowledged. We asked the intercession of a “Litany of Deacons,” and prayed with Psalm 27:13: “I believe that I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”  

Later in the day, we walked back to our lodging in the rain. I had an umbrella, and I offered to carry one of the St Phoebe icons, created by one of our pilgrims and printed on a large and unwieldy styrofoam board. The walk was dark, cold, and longer than we had expected. We were absolutely drenched by the time we arrived home. My backpack and everything in it was wet. But Phoebe, held to my heart under my small travel umbrella, was dry.  

I had a sudden understanding of how Phoebe must have felt carrying the Letter to the Romans for so long (modern scholars estimate it was a journey of about 700 miles!) I am sure she faced downpours and storms and countless other obstacles along the way. But I have no doubt that she protected that precious parcel with a fierceness. 

In a similar way, our pilgrims were carrying something just as beautiful- the vision of a Church which listens to and embraces the diverse gifts of women and marginalized communities worldwide.  

A week or so later, I attended the Discerning Deacons-sponsored “Women of Courage and Confidence Tour,” which led me and other CENTERS students through the stories of the women whose statues line the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square. There were many whose stories I had heard before, like St. Clare of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Catherine of Siena. But there were many more who I had never even heard of: St. Thecla, St. Olympias, and St. Macrina the Younger, among others. Each of their stories was marked by fearless conviction and holy boldness, and while it was inspiring, it prompted a question. What systems of structural marginalization resulted in the silencing of these women’s stories? And how many of these systems still persist today?  

As we explored the stories and spiritualities of these saints, I was profoundly moved by the intersection of so many of their lives. Many of them were friends with other saints, whether their statues were across the Colonnade or their stories had been lost to history. Either way, the Colonnade told a moving, interconnecting web of stories. I felt as though I was surrounded by a legion of holy, empowered women supporting and leading one another to sainthood.  

Intersectional Justice: From Discernment to Direction 

I recently read this quote by James Baldwin: “You always told me it takes time. It has taken my father's time, my mother's time, my uncle's time, my brothers' and my sisters' time, my nieces' and my nephews' time. How much time do you want for your 'progress'?”  The injustice present in the world today is unmistakably an urgent, immediate matter. Many of us, myself included, sometimes have a tendency to fixate on the abstract hypothetical of progress, rather than getting our hands dirty in the work of making it happen at the grassroots level. Of course, we must make space for the discernment process as we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in the direction we are being called to go. But sometimes we need a concrete reminder of the immediacy of the injustices that afflict our neighbors. 

At the core of my work with both Discerning Deacons and CENTERS is the idea that justice work must take on an intersectional approach. In other words, the issue of women’s participation in the Church must be approached in communion with the efforts of environmental justice, antiracism, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and other issues of social justice. It is only when efforts of justice are brought together and approached holistically that we are able to bring the Gospel values of radical compassion, inclusivity, and faith-inspired justice more fully to life in the modern world.  

In an effort to highlight this necessary intersectionality, Discerning Deacons collaborated this year with CEAMA, the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon. Founded in 2020, CEAMA is the first ecclesial conference to include women in its leadership. We were blessed to have as a part of our delegation Sr. Laura Vicuna Pereira Manso, a vice-president of CEAMA, an environmental justice advocate, a leading voice in the conversation of women’s participation in the Church’s leadership, and a member of the Indigenous Kariri people of Brazil. For Sr. Laura, her faith and her activism are two sides of the same coin.“We are a people of ancient traditions, of symbols, of stories,” she said.  

On October 4th, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, Discerning Deacons and CEAMA co-hosted a panel on integral ecology, women in ministry, and synodality. Sr. Laura spoke tearfully of the parallel commodification of the earth and of women’s bodies. “The Amazon has become a place of martyrdom,” she said, emphasizing the urgent need for a “holistic ecology” which values the inherent and interconnected sacredness of human life and natural resources over profits.  

Kascha Sanor, Director of Social and Environmental Justice for the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, criticized what Pope Francis calls in Laudato Si the “technocratic paradigm.” This refers to the concept that technological innovation is advancing much faster than our collective understanding of its moral and ethical implications. “The way we treat the world parallels the way we treat each other,” she commented. 

Living Synodally 

As I adjust back to my schedule as a college student, I am thinking a lot about how I can continue to integrate synodality into my life. Thinking back on the time I spent in Rome, I am struck again and again by the importance of sharing stories. My experiences only emphasized the inherent sacredness of each human life, and the beauty of diverse stories. The Synod has given me so much hope for a world which respects human dignity through listening to lived experiences. I look forward to continuing to walk synodally as we journey towards a world in which the Gospel is fully alive!