DOMRADIO.DE: The meeting in Linz in Upper Austria was about an exchange among the European synod participants. Looking back, how did your expectations of this meeting come true?
Prof. Klara-Antonia Csiszar (Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Catholic Private University of Linz and Synod participant): My expectations were exceeded. I am very surprised at how well the exchange went. In terms of the number of participants, we were a fairly manageable group. The human aspect alone, that everyone got to know each other and addressed each other by name, of course had an impact on the group dynamic.
Accordingly, trust was able to be developed and lived well. We were also able to have a sincere conversation about the “Instrumentum laboris” (working document of the World Synod) and talk about what this means for the respective local churches: What important points can we take from it? Where do we come across something that irritates us? And what voice does Europe play in the symphony of the world church in view of this exchange?
DOMRADIO.DE: You spoke about diversity in advance of this “Voice of Europe”. How did this diversity become visible at the meeting?
Chiszar: In Europe we have to deal with this diversity. I still remember how surprised many people in Prague were at this diversity when, for the first time, not only bishops from Europe discussed things for days with each other, but also lay representatives. The diversity was already very clear and we didn’t really know what it meant and how we could handle tensions in the face of this diversity so that no one’s catholicity was denied.
Now in Linz we have noticed that we are learning to appreciate this diversity more and more, but that we can also tolerate and recognize tensions. That is normal for being Catholic. In Linz we have tried to learn how to use this to imagine the future.
DOMRADIO.DE: Similar to the World Synod, work was carried out in small language groups, which presented their results in the plenary session. What are the issues that are most important to European Catholics?
Klara-Antonia Csiszar
“We don’t have to learn from each other and always know what the other person should think, but rather find out together where our strengths, weaknesses, hopes, fears and joys actually lie.”
Chiszar: Everyone notices that the Catholic Church in Europe is not doing well. There are different diagnoses and interpretations, hermeneutics, as to why this is the case. This has been discussed.
Now, again, it was quite clear that we do not want to give up the synodal experience, the intensive dialogue with one another in this diversity, but want to use and shape it again in some way at the European level after the second session.
There was a consensus because we realized that we need this in order to understand each other. We don’t have to learn from each other and always know how the other person should think, but rather find out together where our strengths, weaknesses, hopes, fears and joys actually lie.
DOMRADIO.DE: What are the issues that most people are concerned about and that some people consider particularly important?
Klara-Antonia Csiszar
“Church is becoming more and more irrelevant.”
Chiszar: What is worrying is that people are disappearing from the church. The church is becoming more and more irrelevant. There is a lack of young people in Western Europe just as there is in Eastern Europe. We have many problems with the next generation of priests. There is no way to sugarcoat this. Women are not present in the church anywhere, or only very little.
Those were the real issues we talked about. We also discussed the structures we would need so that the exchange is not arbitrary or only takes place when people want it to, but is somehow structurally enabled and made necessary.
DOMRADIO.DE: There are great expectations of the church and of reforms. Now, however, the religious philosopher Tomáš Halík has warned in a keynote speechto dampen unrealistic expectations of major institutional changes in the Church immediately after the Synod. Was it perhaps a dampener for some of those who attended the preparatory meeting to hear something like that?
Chiszar: I have to admit that I didn’t hear that. It was more of a surprisingly positive experience of being together, it was very uncomplicated. Many people were there in Prague and it was always repeated what a journey we took from Prague to Linz with a stopover in Rome.
Expectations are high. But what decisions should be made? Decisions that the Hungarian Bishops’ Conference or the German Bishops’ Conference are happy with? How can we think about the future of the Church in such a way that it becomes more and more a Church of possibilities and not of conformity, which then causes a lot of friction because the corset becomes ever tighter, if this diversity cannot actually be shaped in the sense of a healthy decentralization, as Pope Francis has emphasized so often since the beginning of his pontificate?
Then, of course, the question of mission arises: What does mission mean? Part of mission is that I have to immerse myself in today’s world and hear out the questions of life there so that I can experience the love of God in a concrete context.
It is difficult to have a recipe for all contexts. This contextuality has been a major topic of discussion, that we must make room for this diversity, but in such a way that we do not give up on working together.
DOMRADIO.DE: What are your expectations when you travel to Rome in October for the World Synod? What message do you have with you that you will bring from Linz to Rome?
Chiszar: Talk to each other, eat together, drink coffee together. That is how trust is built. If we only meet formally and cannot actually go deeper, that is not much use. I am convinced that the process of moving from an I to a we is underway. If this had not already been evident in Rome during the first session, we would not have this synthesis report.
Klara-Antonia Csiszar
“As long as I don’t know the other person’s world, it doesn’t affect me.”
But we have to move on. The next session is coming, and not only the discussions at the table, but also the conversations on the side will be very important, so that we can get out of our own bubble and immerse ourselves a little in each other’s world. Because then decisions will be made accordingly. As long as I don’t know the other person’s world, it doesn’t affect me.
DOMRADIO.DE: There have been voices saying that there should be regular meetings like this, internationally or European. How do you see it? Will the regular meetings really only start after Rome?
Chiszar: Of course, we have already seen such initiatives in South America. The South Americans are in top shape when it comes to this kind of regular exchange. We still have a lot to learn. I hope that this experience of synodality, for example in two language groups, as suggested by the theologian Christoph Theobald, can ultimately be thought of and continued through a kind of European ecclesial assembly.
That would help our continent a lot. Because what we are seeing at the moment, this social and ecclesiastical division, this gap, is something that not even the communists managed to overcome.
The interview was conducted by Jan Hendrik Stens.
With the World Synod, Pope Francis has created something new in the Catholic Church. For the first time, non-bishops and non-priests will have voting rights on a large scale at a synod, including women.
The main focus will be on new ways of involving the church’s grassroots in important decisions in the Catholic Church. Although non-ordained men and women will have the right to vote for the first time, in canon law this is a synod of bishops.
