In mid-June, 135 Catholics from across Canada discovered just how hard it can be to listen at a groundbreaking conference at St. Jerome’s University College in Waterloo, Ont.
Listening is hard, but essential, says Fr. Daryold Corbierre Winkler, one of 15 Indigenous participants in the conference, called the Journey of Encounter, which ran June 15 to 18.
The four-day conference was an experiment in synodality that follows from a four-year listening process initiated by the late Pope Francis. That process concluded at the Vatican last fall.
“We need to learn how to listen to each other to come to peace, to be able to come to an understanding, for there to be dialogue,” Winkler said. “We don’t know how to listen to each other. We love to talk. We love to blah, blah, blah. We have great ideas. But we’re not listening to what each other have to say.”
Synodality — a Greek word meaning “walking together” — was a major initiative during Francis’ years as pope. Synodality and the idea of a “culture of encounter” has become a focal point for reforming the Catholic Church, and has been embraced by Francis’ successor, Pope Leo XIV.
Christine Way-Skinner, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto Regis-St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology, wishes more Canadian Catholics knew about the Canadian origins of synodality employed by Pope Francis during two global meetings of bishops, theologians and others in Rome in 2023 and 2024.
In the Rome meetings, the participants were broken into small groups that sat in circles. Francis also sat in a circle with other bishops, priests, and lay men and women.
These groups prayed before anyone spoke, allowed each speaker to speak without interruption or comment, prayed again in silence before inviting comments, then finally prayed again after everyone had spoken. The technique is called “conversations in the spirit” and was pioneered by Canada’s Jesuits beginning in the 1970s as a way to deliberate over difficult group decisions while remaining grounded in spiritual, religious realities.
“I think we should be really proud about that,” said Way-Skinner, who is studying synodality for her PhD in systematic theology.
People sitting in circles, listening carefully to all voices, is also an inherently Indigenous approach to decision-making, says Winkler.
“When we gather in circles, we listen to each other. Therefore, consensus takes a long time — a long, long time.”
In Winkler’s eyes, that long process is key to Canadian history.
“The treaties were signed in a synodal kind of environment, where everyone sat in a circle and each person spoke about what this treaty means for each person — including representatives of the Crown,” Winkler said. “They would share a peace pipe ceremony. The government officials would follow the lead of Indigenous ways of creating this kind of kinship. That’s what treaties were — friendship treaties, sharing land, things like that.”
‘Listening very closely’
At St. Jerome’s, delegates were broken into 17 tables where they prayed about and discussed a variety of topics, including “living our baptismal call,” “embracing Catholicity” and “growing in synodality.”
The Canadian organizers’ goal was to bring the entire synodality project down from the elite level of gatherings in Rome and bishop reports to parish life, Way-Skinner says.
“If you have a synodal parish, if you’re really committed to synodality, you will be listening very closely,” she said.
More listening would mean more opportunities to include the majority of Catholics who have stopped participating in church life, she says.
“You will be listening very closely to those parents coming, bringing their children for first communion, who don’t go to church — hearing what they have to say about what their real spiritual needs are,” said Way-Skinner. “There’s some very real reasons why people are not coming to church. And we don’t listen.”
Hamilton Bishop Doug Crosby sees synodality as a way to expand the culture of the Church. He welcomed the opportunity to host the Journey of Encounter in his diocese.
“The people who came back from the synod certainly are energized and have been engaged in talking about it,” Crosby told Canadian Affairs.
Like most bishops, Crosby wishes Catholic schools and parishes would work more closely together. Synodality has opened a path for more co-operation, he says.
“So you’ve got principals and pastors working together, learning how to listen to one another and learning how to share in a civil way,” he said. “Boy, that’s really, really good. It’s healing and it’s formative and it’s moving us in good directions, positive directions.”
‘They just can’t fathom’
Indigenous participation in the St. Jerome’s gathering — from smudging ceremonies at mass to singing the Our Father in Mohawk — was important, says Winkler, who is one of only seven Indigenous priests in Canada. Hostility to the Church from younger Indigenous Canadians whose grandparents suffered at Catholic-run residential schools is a major challenge that requires a synodal response, he says.
“I have nephews and nieces who are hostile to the Church. And they are asking me, ‘Why are you still in it? Why do you still bother … They just can’t fathom, and they’re hostile at the same time,” Winkler said. “I say that I’m angry too. I feel anger too. I don’t like what happened to my mother. I don’t like what happened there.”
But a more synodal Church offers Winkler the opportunity to span an ever widening generational and cultural gap — to offer healing.
“I think that maybe I can function as something of a bridge — at a local level,” he said. “I’m not saying I’m going to be a universal bridge between Indigenous peoples and the Church. But at a local level, with my communities, I can be something of a bridge, although this hostility is not going to end soon.”
Though the Journey of Encounter was welcomed by Bishop Crosby and included the virtual participation of Bishop Alain Faubert of Valleyfield, Que., the conference was not an initiative of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the national assembly of Canadian bishops. The organizers were mostly lay people.
“It’s a good thing that we did this, because the laity needs to get engaged,” said Way-Skinner. “An engaged laity will change the Church. An engaged laity that loves the Church, that wants to work with the hierarchy.”
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