The Quiet Revolution of Pope Francis: A Synodal Catholic Church in Ireland?

Pope Francis wants to bring about a quiet revolution within the Catholic Church. He wants a reformed church in which the `sense of the faithful’, the instinct of baptised men and women, is given a role in the formation and reception of church teaching and governance. The model is one of Jesus conversing with his male and female disciples in Palestine – a walking together of the People of God, a `synodal’ church.Irish Jesuit theologian Gerry O’Hanlon examines this ecclesiological project of Francis and the new roles within it of pope and bishops, theologians, and all the baptised. He considers the Pope’s strategy of a changed ecclesial structure that would out-live his own pontificate.Francis advocates a critical openness to contemporary culture, a culture of consultation and open debate, and communal discernment practised at every level of `an entirely synodal church’. O’Hanlon argues that this project offers new hope of a better reading of the `signs of the times’ by the Catholic Church, not least in areas of sexuality of gender.The author applies this analysis to our situation in Ireland and suggests that whatever about the desirable spiritual renewal which a papal visit may inspire, it is to be hoped that the more lasting long-term effects might be the realisation of a synodal Irish Catholic Church.

Reviews of The Quiet Revolution of Pope Francis: A Synodal Catholic Church in Ireland?

In this new book O'Hanlon offers an Irish theology for a church in crisis, carefully crafted in the light of his experience of having travelled the length and breadth of Ireland over the last 10 years. This is not an armchair theology but one that has been chiselled out of the experience of listening to and learning from others in high and low places, engaging with diverse groups, attending to the teaching of Vatican II, and heeding the prophetic voice of the Bishop of Rome. … a wake-up call for a slumbering church;From the Foreword by Dermot A. Lane: Gerry O'Hanlon's book draws on decades of reflection, by himself and by others, upon the immense challenges facing the Catholic Church in the post-Vatican II period, in Ireland and beyond. We have lacked neither the vision nor the goodwill to move forward; but the institutional and organisational reforms needed to make Vatican II an embedded reality have eluded us, until now. Pope Francis, the 'gentle revolutionary', has called for a new, 'synodal' way of being church. 'Synod' means "the path which we walk together", and it looks like the missing piece of the jigsaw. O'Hanlon's wise, critical but hopeful diagnosis offers the glimpse of a longed-for sea-change for the Church.Michael Kirwan SJ, theologian, Loyola School of Catholic Theology, Trinity College, Dublin.