When I arrived at the synod last year, I thought the tremendous challenge would be to overcome the toxic animosity between traditionalists and progressives. How can we bridge this polarization, so foreign to Catholicism? But as I listened, I realized that there is a much more fundamental challenge: How can the Church embrace all the vastly different cultures of our world? How can we include in the net fish from every culture so that the net does not break?
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it seemed that the Cold War was behind us. Francis Fukuyama published the book The End of History and the Last Man /1992/, in which he argued that we had entered a new era, the era of the triumph of Western liberal democracy. It seemed that every nation was destined to "develop" in our Western way of life. Some countries, especially those in the Global South, just need to catch up to the West. This was an illusion from which the West is slowly awakening. Instead, we live in a multipolar world, where many inhabitants of the Global South view the West as decadent and doomed. We live in a post-Western world. Many in the West have not yet realized this.
We are looking forward to a new Pentecost, in which each culture will speak in its native language and will be understood. This is also our task during the synod and the foundation of our mission in a torn and divided world. We ask for the intercession of Mary, undoer of knots, and Peter, the keeper of the nets!
First of all, let us recognize that if we are to be Catholics, we need each other. The different cultures gathered at this synod offer healing to one another, shake off ingrained prejudices, and encourage deeper understanding of love. Each culture has its way of noticing the Unknown on the shore of the lake and exclaiming, "It is the Lord!"
(Timothy Radcliffe OP, excerpt from the synodal meditation, October 1, 2024)
