John Allen has a commentary on the first installment of the interview his wife, Elise, had with Pope Leo. You can read his full commentary HERE.
You can read the questions and answers of his wife's interview in the first installment HERE.
However, here is John Allen’s commentary on the part of the interviw concerning synodality.
I have highlighted in red what I think are the salient refining points concerning synodlaity that Pope Leo makes according to John Allen at Crux:
“Synodality is an attitude, an openness, a willingness to understand. Speaking of the Church now, this means each and every member of the church has a voice and a role to play through prayer [and] reflection,” he told Elise.
“It’s an attitude which I think can teach a lot to the world today,” Leo said of his predecessor’s cornerstone agenda item. “A little bit ago we were talking about polarization. I think [synodality] is sort of an antidote. I think this is a way of addressing some of the greatest challenges that we have in the world today.”...
“Sometimes bishops or priests might feel, ‘synodality is going to take away my authority,’” he said. “That’s not what synodality is about...”
“The process (of synodality) began long before the last synod, at least in Latin America,” he said. “I spoke about my experience there,” perhaps referring to a passage in the book in which he discusses how a participatory and dialogic spirit grew up in Latin America. He appears to suggest that what we today know as synodality was actually pioneered by the Second Vatican Council.
“I think [synodality] offers a great opportunity to the Church and offers an opportunity for the Church to engage with the rest of the world,” he said. “Since the time of the Second Vatican Council, I think that’s been significant, and there’s a lot to be done yet.”
In other words, he’s saying that no matter what you may have thought of Francis personally, much of what he stood for — however idiosyncratically it may have been expressed at times — actually drew on much deeper, widespread and essentially non-ideological currents in the church.
Finally, Leo offers a hint that preserving the ideal of synodality doesn’t necessarily mean all the structures, procedures and systems Francis himself put into place.
“There are many ways that that could happen, of dialogue and respect of one another,” he said – meaning not necessarily through artifacts of the last synodal experience, such as the infamous round tables to foster “conversation in the spirit” which some participants found liberating but others saw as vacuous and unfocused.
Leo suggested what’s important is to preserve the spirit of synodality, while being open to different ways of implementing it.
“To bring people together and to understand that relationship, that interaction, that creating opportunities of encounter, is an important dimension of how we live our life as church,” he said.
So, in miniature we have a Pope Leo three-step when it comes to his predecessor: Loyalty to the substance, attention to its deeper ecclesiastical roots to avoid undue personalization, and a willingness to be flexible about ways and means.
It’s the sort of balanced and careful approach one might expect from a pope who understands that he took over from a visionary, but also a lightning rod – and that for Francis’ imprint to endure, it may need to be pruned as well as pressed.
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