The Irish Catholic bishops, as part of the Irish Synodal Pathway, released their synthesis report of a wide-ranging listening phase on 16 August. Prepared after countrywide consultations across the 26 dioceses of Ireland, the document is presented as an amalgamation of the reports from each diocese, 29 additional submissions and the results of a National Synodal Gathering which took place in July.  

The report has been met with a mixed response. Under the leading question of “What does God want from the Church in Ireland at this time?” the synthesis reports provides no answer, but proposes much that people want from God and the Church. The report claims that the people want change. Reported in the Irish Times, former Irish President Mary McAleese described the document as “explosive, life-altering, dogma-altering, church-altering”, claiming that the report comes “not from the hierarchy, not from Rome, but from the people of God”.  

The headline outtakes from the report are primarily a list of grievances at the Church: participation of the laity; the conservatism of younger priests; the abuse crisis; issues around the inclusion of women and members of the LGBTQ+ community; canon law; Church teachings on sexuality. The impression given is that these are the over-riding views of the faithful, who have little positive or good to say about the Church.  

David Quinn, Director of the Iona Institute in Ireland, shares McAleese’s view that the report could be Church-altering, but does not see it in the same positive light: “If the Church in Ireland is tempted to imitate the German synodal process (which reflects the self-defeating obsessions of Western liberals), it will only hasten its decline and damage communion in the Church worldwide.” 

Prior to the release of the Synthesis report, each diocese had prepared its own report, which the Diocese of Elphin described as “about what people think, what they have experienced and how they feel. It is not intended to be a statement of policy or a proposal for pastoral or institutional renewal. These, hopefully, will follow at a later stage in the process.” Many who contributed to the consultation sessions commented that they felt the diocesan reports were far from the tenor of the conversations in which they participated at a local level.  

David Quinn believes that there is an issue here: “It seems to be that the main concerns raised at parish meetings are not being properly reflected in much of the coverage. At the one I attended, these were mostly the lack of vocations and the lack of young people. Others I spoke to who attended meetings in their parishes said much the same thing. The usual liberal obsessions were not very much in evidence at all.” 

“The synodal process should not create unrealistic expectations of doctrinal change, nor should what really took place be misrepresented, much less pass off this misrepresentation as somehow the work of the Holy Spirit.” 

The preparatory document for the Synodal process, released by the Vatican, states that the “consultation of the People of God does not imply the assumption within the Church of the dynamics of democracy based on the principle of majority…”, yet the Irish report will have created a sense of expectation that the people have spoken. Mary McAleese echoes this: “Clearly there was a very, very strong movement for reform and change and this is reflected fairly and truthfully.” Others are not so sure.  

There are two important questions that have come from the synthesis document. First, does it reflect fairly and truthfully the views of the people of God who contributed to the process; secondly, how did a process that posed the question about what God wants from the Church come to answer the question of what the people (or some people) want to change about the Church and its teachings? 

Clues to the answers to these questions are found within the report. The synthesis report reads more akin to an executive summary. There is no data or data analysis presented in the report. Littered with statements that begin with “One (diocesan) submission stated…” it is impossible to understand how representative cherry-picked statements are of the views of the many thousands who participated. 

There is no movement through the process from individual submissions, parish consultations and syntheses, to diocesan and up to the national level. There is no quantifiable breakdown of views or opinions. The reader is left to trust that the steering committee has accurately and truly presented the consultation in all its depth and variety.  

Despite the observation early in the report that it was difficult to generate involvement of young people and other hard-to-reach groups, the report itself is nevertheless heavily weighted towards their views. The Cork & Ross diocesan report stated that “one of the challenges of the journey thus far has been the difficulty of engaging with those who are marginalised or disengaged … A key issue appeared to be the challenge of getting beyond the representative bodies and the difficulty of meeting the individuals.” 

However, contrary traditionalist voices are almost absent from the synthesis report, which goes so far as to elevate the voice of minority groups such as the LGBTQ+ consultation held in Elphin: “the visceral clarity of this particular focus group gave life to the rather more tentative and generalised positions on inclusion offered elsewhere, pointing to the value of hearing directly the voices of the excluded or disaffected.” 

The Irish bishops’ synthesis report presents a people of God who no longer want a Catholic Church that remains Catholic, but one that reflects the world around it. While unable to investigate more deeply because of the lack of detailed information in the report, if this is a fair reflection of the views of the Irish faithful, then the Church in Ireland is not looking to what God wants from them, but demanding change in dogma and Canon Law. If the report is right about one thing, then it is that there is a crisis of faith formation in Ireland. 

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