Building The Listening Church Pope Francis Wants
By Frances Forde Plude
In my cover article in America magazine (April 4, 2016), I describe the desire expressed by Pope Francis to the 2016 Synod of Bishops on the Family. He said we must not only hold synods; we must become a synodal church – a listening community of faith.
How can we call upon the riches of both theology and communication studies (along with leadership studies) to empower listening among all ‘people of God?’
How can we enrich the sense of community within U.S. parishes faced with dwindling congregations, the absence of youth, aging and overburdened clerics, and parishioners who attend for Mass and Communion and then hurry home, often not interacting much with others?
A significant model has been developed by Matthias Scharer, emeritus professor at the University of Innsbruck. Scharer worked closely for years with Bernd Jochen Hilberath, professor at the University of Tübingen in developing Communicative Theology workshops. These are based on the pedagogy of the late Ruth Cohn who urged that we help every individual within varied groups to recognize every person’s right to be their own chairperson. This can help prevent the domination of people, seen in Hitler’s vision and prevalent even today around the globe.
Here is one possibility…
What if we organized a project to develop a model workshop for U.S. faith leaders based on the above model? Funding could be sought to support gatherings based in Retreat Centers throughout the U.S.
This offers the following advantages:
People attracted to retreat settings are prayerful, often leaders
This removes the experience from academia, sometimes rigid
The possibility exists that the group could be ecumenical
This could train people to return and enrich their local congregations