The Czech theologian, Tomas Halik, was recently asked to give a talk to a working meeting of the European delegates to the October Synod. It was, in my view, a most radical and profound talk. Here I wish to highlight what really stood out for me.
He begins by giving an outline of the breadth of the Synodal project, not just to the Church but to the whole world.
Synodality is not just to improve communication within the Church, but with the Church and the whole human family. His talk consistently emphasised the need for a Church open to the whole of creation. To embark on the synodal path requires the courage to be led across many boundaries by the Spirit, of whom Jesus says that “we do not know where he comes from or where he goes”.
The God he speaks of is large, all embracing, not distant but immersed in the whole of creation, not confined by beliefs, nations, but whose voice is available to all.
God speaks to us in all sorts of ways:
- through Scripture, tradition, Church authority, and through the non-conforming and often unwelcome voices of prophets and mystics;
- Through the daily practice of the people of God, the signs of the times, and through the events in history, society and culture.
The seeds of his Word are richly scattered in different cultures, and are found in philosophies, religions and artistic creations all over the planet.
But the Church can provide us with the contemplative approach to reality that allows us to perceive the constant presence of God, and to perceive our relationship with the natural environment as our relationship of cooperation and responsibility for the ongoing process of creation.
Change is essential in order to communicate the message in a meaningful way to each generation. This change must also happen in Church structures, in doctrinal and spiritual teaching, in theological knowledge.
The Church participates in Christ’s cross, suffering and death through the death and extinction of its many forms — institutionally, doctrinally and spiritually. Without death there is no resurrection, and this also applies to the Church and all its facets, including its doctrine. To regard any particular form of the Church, of theological knowledge, as final, perfect and unchangeable is to succumb to the temptation of triumphalism.
Triumphalism consists of making the present as a perfect state, the final triumph of Heaven. He goes on to talk about the four big dangers of a triumphalist Church:
1. Paternalism: It forgets that the teaching Church must always be a learning Church.
2. Clericalism: understands authority in the Church as worldly power, not ministry — a ruling class, separated from the people.
3. Fundamentalism: this takes Scripture and tradition as idols that need no further interpretation; in this it flattens the mysteries of faith, binding them into the shape of a closed ideological system.
4. Traditionalism: a heresy in the sense of an arbitrary selection that takes a certain historically conditioned form of the Church or its doctrine out of context and absolutises it.
Then he goes on to sum this up in the following statement, which in my view has enormous implications for the future of the Church.
Faithfulness to the content of the faith is a commitment to courageously, creatively, and responsibly revive and transform the forms of its expression so as to enable the content to be communicated in an intelligible and creditable way.
All attempts to shackle the freedom of the Spirit of God, to reduce the richness of his self-expression and to enclose it in a rigid, closed ideological system run the risk of the gravest sin: the sin against the Holy Spirit.
He goes on to emphasise this even more clearly.
The synodal reform of the Church presupposes a reform of theological thinking, from static thinking of unchanging natures to the need for constant renewal and deepening.
This involves a renewal of both the understanding of the Church and of Christian ethics, including sexual and political ethics. In doing so the findings of the natural and social sciences cannot be ignored.
His final words.
The Church and the world can no longer be seen as separate entities. We are interconnected, and we need to understand, develop and cultivate the way of this interconnection.
I love the image of a Synodal Church that Halik presents in this talk, and that is obviously in tune with the Synodal process, since he was chosen to give this talk to the delegates. It is a Church characterised by openness, freedom of thought and expression, listening and acceptance of differences, and also acknowledging the need for each age to find new language and new ways to present the message of Jesus.
From a personal point of view I would feel very much at home in this Church, since I firmly believe that nothing I have written or spoken in the course of my life as a priest is in any way contrary to the image of Church outlined by Halik.
