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I wholeheartedly agree with Luciani that adding a few courses on synodality will not transform priestly formation if the underlying culture remains unchanged. Formation itself must embody the Church we hope to become.
At People’s Catholic Seminary, this conviction has shaped our approach from the beginning. We believe theological education and preparation for ministry should take place within the lived experience of the People of God, not apart from them. Theology emerges not only from books and classrooms but from relationships, ministry, prayer, justice work, suffering, celebration, and the wisdom of communities.
Luciani writes that seminarians need sustained relationships with laywomen, laymen, religious, families, parishes and people on the social margins, rather than being formed primarily within isolated residential institutions. He also argues that women and laypeople should participate meaningfully in formation teams, theological faculties and evaluations of candidates for ordination. (National Catholic Reporter)
This is an especially important step. But I would invite the Church to go even further.
If baptism gives all Christians equal dignity and calls the entire People of God into participation in Christ’s mission, then women should not simply help form men for ordained ministry. Women themselves must be free to respond to God’s call to ordained ministry.
A truly synodal formation process cannot proclaim equality while maintaining a system in which gender determines who may be ordained.
For more than two decades, Roman Catholic Women Priests have been living another model. Women priests and bishops serve communities in which ministry is rooted in baptismal equality, shared leadership, discernment and an open table. Our experience demonstrates that ordained ministry need not be separated from ordinary life or placed above the community.
At People’s Catholic Seminary, candidates bring their lived experience into conversation with Scripture, theology, spirituality, pastoral ministry and justice. Formation becomes a circle rather than a pyramid. Teachers learn from students. Candidates learn from communities. Communities participate in discerning ministry. And all of us remain learners listening together for the movement of the Spirit.
Luciani recalls the ancient principle cited by the Synod: Nihil sine consensu plebis — nothing without the consensus of the people. (National Catholic Reporter) That ancient wisdom has profound implications for the future of ordained ministry.
Imagine seminaries becoming communities of discernment rather than institutions of clerical separation.
Imagine women and men studying theology together, praying together, serving together and discerning calls to ministry together.
Imagine candidates for ordination living among the people they will serve and being evaluated not simply by superiors but by communities who know their compassion, integrity and capacity to listen.
Imagine priestly formation in which authority is understood not as power over others but as service within a community of equals.
That would indeed be synodal formation.
Luciani concludes that the Church does not need “administrators of the sacred” but servant-pastors who walk with the faithful and listen to the Spirit speaking through them. (National Catholic Reporter)
I would add: the Spirit is already speaking through women, LGBTQ+ persons, married people, marginalized communities and countless Catholics whose vocations have too often been ignored by institutional structures.
A synodal Church must trust that Spirit.
The renewal of ministry will not come simply from renovating the seminary. It will come when the entire Church becomes the seminary — a community where the baptized learn from one another, discern together, share leadership and recognize the gifts God has already poured out among the People of God.
At People’s Catholic Seminary, this is the Church we are trying to live into now.
— Rev. Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan
Co-Founder, People’s Catholic Seminary
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