“Three key themes that emerged
were community, leadership, and
handing on the faith to the next
generation”
~Fr. Bill
For a Synodal Church
On October 9, 2021, Pope Francis began a two-year process of listening and dialoguing in the Church. The starting point was at the parish level. From January through March of 2022, 263 St. John the Baptist parishioners gathered in 21 parish synod sessions to share their experience of being Church. We submitted our parish report to the Archdiocese the first part of May. You can view the parish report from our webpage: sjtbcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ SJTB-Parish-Synod-Report-1.pdf. On June 30, the Archdiocese submitted its Synod Synthesis Report to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The synthesis report captures feedback from nearly 1,000 online and in-person gatherings, involving over 11,000 people across Western Washington. The report will now be included in a national synthesis process before a consolidated United States report is submitted to the Vatican for the October 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome.
Three key themes that emerged were community, leadership, and handing on the faith to the next generation.
- Community: Listening sessions revealed the importance of community. The value of parish communities, barriers to belonging, and the marginalization of LGBTQ+ people were key topics of discussion around Church communities as “a home, not an institution.”
- Leadership: Discussion focused on the role of Church leadership at the national level, the impact of the parish priest, models of leadership, the role of women, and concerns around both transparency and trust in the wake of the abuse crisis.
- Passing on the faith: One of the most prevalent themes centered on sharing the faith with future generations, with a focus on how youth are disconnected. Meanwhile, youth reported feeling judged and feel like they do not belong. To read the full ten-page report, please visit the Archdiocese of Seattle website org/wpcontent/ uploads/2022/06/Final-Synthesis-withappendix- min.pdf
Thank you to all who participated in our parish sessions and to those who served as facilitators and scribes.