Synodality lacks legitimacy

 Catholic Women's Movement: Conference as "synodality in practice"

At the summer study conference with 65 kfb representatives from all over Austria starting on Wednesday in Matrei, meetings with Bishop Krautwaschl and young women are also planned - "Women's Synod Day" is dedicated to church-related reform concerns

The annual summer study conference of the Catholic Women's Movement of Austria (kfbö) is taking the form of "practised synodality" this year against the background of the worldwide synodal process in the Church. At the meeting of around 65 kfb women from all over Austria from Wednesday, 24 to Saturday, 27 August at the Diocesan Training House of St. Michael in Matrei/Brenner, the focus will be on listening to each other, participation and having a say under the title "Church of the Future". As the "core" of the study conference, the kfbö announced a "Women's Synod Day" on Tuesday, at which the results of a survey conducted in spring 2022 among women throughout Austria will be presented on Thursday.

The addressee of the responses from more than 600 women - and a small number of sympathetic men - is Bishop Wilhelm Krautwaschl of Graz, who has been invited to the conference as a consulting bishop. After handing over the results of the survey, the participating kfb women want to talk to the bishop about the reform concerns formulated in the survey. 

Cathcon: they have responses from 

0.00025% 

of Catholic women in Austria

 Lisa Hermanns will give an encouraging talk on the topic of gender justice in the Church, which the Catholic Women's Movement has been advocating not only since the Synodal Process; Margit Schäfer will deal with the topic of "fair care" (care work).

The kfbö was confident that the Church would be open to change in the current pontificate. It was not for nothing that the motto of the survey conducted until June was "The Pope is listening. Your opinion counts".

The conference will pay special attention to the increasingly church-distant group of young women. According to the announcement, young women representatives from different fields will be "actively involved". Several women invited by the kfbö "will contribute from their respective perspectives and make their expertise available", it said.

Women want more joint responsibility

As the largest Austrian women's organisation, kfbö wants to advance the church reform debate in view of the next phase of the worldwide synodal process, in which, after the surveys at diocesan or country level, a continental meeting is planned in Prague in February 2023, before the final World Synod of Bishops on Synodality takes place in the Vatican in October 2023. The kfbö hopes that as many women as possible will be directly involved in the consultations on the future of the Church.

"The women's issue is there worldwide, across all cultural differences," kfbö Chair Angelika Ritter-Grepl expressed her conviction after a visit to Vatican institutions in May. But sometimes patience runs out, "it drags on like strudel dough". The mastermind for opening up the offices to women - a declared concern of the kfbö - is the Pope, said the chairperson. At the end of the day it will be a question of "how we deal with the issue of ordination". She was hopeful that changes would "come faster than slower. We are on the way and the course is right".