Modernist concedes only Traditionalists will be left if the Church carries on as she is. Proposes contradiction in terms, Synodal Catholicity as alternative.

What comes after the church crises? Learning Synodal Catholicity

The Catholic Church is experiencing many crises simultaneously. But what comes after? Arnd Bünker identifies five central dimensions of crisis and proposes future perspectives with the model of synodal catholicity.

Arnd Bünker

Only those who recognize the fundamental crises of the Catholic Church are capable of thinking beyond them. However, there is no clear before and after, but rather a continuum of uncertainty, search processes, experiments, and growing clarity about where the church might specifically develop in the future. First, the key dimensions of the crisis in brief, followed by a proposal for a future orientation.

Crisis of relevance

If the coronavirus has shown one thing, it is the loss of relevance of the church—both its message and its offerings. Especially in the first phase of the pandemic, when the sense of uncertainty in society was particularly high, there was little evidence of the churches as agencies providing meaning. Only Pope Francis' extraordinary "Urbi et Orbi" blessing, delivered alone in a rainy St. Peter's Square, received significant media attention. A real spectacle.

In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the Church was lost to many, even those close to the Church. A concise message was not heard. Communication channels, structures, and practical know-how were lacking. After Easter 2020, Christmas was also de facto canceled – largely without replacement. It is therefore no longer surprising that the personal loss of relevance of faith is one of the strongest drivers of leaving the church.

Institutional crisis

If one understands an institution as a socially recognized form for solving an important problem, then several institutions experienced a crisis during the pandemic: Scientific research was interrupted by Dr. Google relativized the situation, state protective measures were seen as political arbitrariness, and public media were seen as fake news. And the church? It would have been important as an institution for dealing with great contingency experiences – actually. But it acted too cowardly, too quietly, and too late. It was soon considered no longer "systemically relevant." Why should anyone belong to a church that is no longer needed?

Social form crisis

The pastoral organizational form and mentality of the parish, which has dominated to this day, are increasingly dysfunctional, both for pastoral and personnel reasons. For many, the parish has become meaningless. It is rarely addressed even in crises. The fact that a strong pillar of churchliness can nevertheless be observed in the parish structure is primarily due to the fact that there are hardly any alternative points of contact with the church and its offerings.

Socialisation crisis

The end of the "junior church" (Michael N. Ebertz) has long been recognized. In particular, the decline of the familial transmission of faith and church membership is unmistakable. At the same time, vast resources are being channeled into church activities for children, students, and young people. But this is proving to be unproductive in terms of sustained commitment to faith and the church.

Participation crisis

Finally, there is the crisis of participation in the life of the church. The collapse in the number of priests since the late 1960s has been followed by a decline in the number of so-called "lay theologians" in recent years. Added to this is a growing reluctance to volunteer – especially in structurally related areas, such as parish councils. Today's church structures and pastoral routines can no longer be maintained. Other dimensions of the crisis could also be mentioned: membership, financial, leadership, trust crises...

The future needs decisions

The future of the church does not have to be seen as a continuation of previous trends and statistics. Even large institutions can change and adapt to new circumstances. But this requires a decision to let go of the old and dare to try something new. This also requires central guidelines that do not limit creativity, but rather enable it.

If no decision is made, the accelerated disintegration of the current church structure is likely to continue. Above all, it would be predominantly traditional to traditionalist Catholics who would remain on the ruins. In France, we can see what this means: measured against a Catholic Church that is barely recognisable overall, traditional and traditionalist groups are comparatively strong. 

These groups often have their backs to the liberal majority society and culture; an "identitarian" Catholicism with close ties to right-wing and far-right political forces.

A Proposal: Synodal Catholicity

For a decision toward change and for bold, creative perspectives in the Catholic Church, I propose synodal catholicity as a framework of orientation. This framework seems appropriate to me for an actively shaped transformation process within the Church.

I understand Catholicity here as a diversity-oriented self-image of the Catholic Church, which replaces the model of Catholicism as a uniform model of the Church and recontours the "core brand" of the Catholic Church. From a universal Church perspective, one can also think of Robert Schreiter's "New Catholicity."

By "synodal," I mean a specific mode of establishing and maintaining catholicity, namely, dialogic cohesion in the diversity of being Church. Thus, catholicity is continually established anew through ongoing dialogue, without aiming for uniformity. It is not the overcoming of differences, but rather the endurance of ever-changing concepts of Catholicity that brings catholicity into being in a processual way. This by no means excludes dispute and conflict, but rather includes them. However, the conversation continues.

The approach of Synodal Catholicity will be briefly outlined in light of the crises mentioned above.

Relevance

Where catholicity can unfold in genuine, even tense, diversity, and seemingly unorthodox concepts are given space, foreign and previously unknown understandings of the gospel become visible and new appropriations of the gospel by a wide variety of people become possible. Thus, the Catholic Church, precisely in its multifaceted fragmentation, becomes more receptive to the diverse expectations and individualized religious-spiritual self-understandings of the people of our time.

Institution

Catholicity values ​​a wide range of forms of belonging to the Church, even beyond the duo of baptism and church membership regulated by state-church law, familiar in German-speaking countries. This allows for increased points of contact, scope for identification, and forms of participation in or with the Church, its message, or its offerings. Their function will then become recognizable and tangible for more people.

Social form

Beyond the parish-territorial model, alternative social forms are enabled that provide many people, both inside and outside the church, with better opportunities for encounter and participation. This also relieves the parish's territorial local organization of its constant overburdening and allows for models of local church-being without having to maintain the "full parochial program."

Socialisation

In addition to appropriate programs for children and young people, programs for adults of all ages are initiated that enable lifelong learning of faith. The classic style of school-based catechesis gives way to a variety of adult-friendly formats for exploring or testing faith. In these, uncertainty, doubt, tolerance of error, and individuality are not only given space, but are understood as a permanent prerequisite for any learning of faith.

Participation

A church that develops its catholicity in diversity not only tolerates different degrees and forms of participation. It also welcomes people with diverse backgrounds and lifestyles, with a wide range of images of church, spirituality, and faith, as well as with divergent interpretations of the gospel. This openness naturally also applies to those professionally involved in the church and its preaching. The only criterion for participation is the willingness to allow one's own perspective to be placed in perspective in the synodal exercise of catholicity. It must be tolerated that others participate in their own ways.

Leading Synodal Catholicity?

For church leadership, synodal catholicity opens up a new style of leadership. This style places primary emphasis on the dialogue of (permanently) different people as a continuous practice of creating catholicity. Leadership is "hierarchical" in the sense that it is fully committed to a synodality that makes the Holy Spirit the decisive synodal voice of authority. This voice, however, cannot be heard without synodal dialogue and listening to the voices of the people. Such a process necessarily remains incomplete. It also demands from all involved a constant willingness to correct and repent, in order to discover the gospel ever better, ever differently, and ever anew. A synodically understood hierarchy is committed to this "holy origin" of God's promise for all creation, always understood only in small facets.

Church as an agency of the Gospel

At all times, the Church has found ways to bear witness to the gospel. Time and again, it has erred along these paths. Often, conversion has succeeded, even if

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