SAN DIEGO — A transformation is unfolding at nearly half of the parishes in the diocese, as lay leaders and their pastors re-imagine daily parish life and leadership.
They are bringing to life a concept initially championed in the Universal Church by Pope Francis, called synodality, and now affirmed by Pope Leo XIV.
Two events at the Diocese of San Diego in August will highlight that transformation.
On Friday evening, Aug. 21, Sister Nathalie Becquart, will offer a reflection on “Re-Imagining Parish Life in a Synodal Church.” She is the Vatican’s Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, the office that shapes how the Catholic Church listens, discerns and implements synodality.
The following day, Sister Becquart will speak at the diocese’s third annual synod convocation, addressing clergy and lay leaders participating in the diocese’s initiative to sow synodality at its parishes. A total of 44 are now participating in the two-year-old effort — and counting.
Paulist Father John Hurley, the diocese’s synod facilitator, expects close to 400 people to attend the convocation, to be held at St. Thomas More Parish, including the 23 members of the Diocesan Commission for a Synodal Church.
The commission, launched last spring by Bishop Michael Pham, is primarily made up of pastors and synod coordinators at parishes in each of the diocese’s seven deaneries. Their goal is to share their real-life experiences of implementing a synodal approach in their parishes with fellow pastors, and to help one another in this process.
The final document from the Synod of Bishops, presented in 2024, defined synodality this way:
“Synodality is a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the Church to be more participatory and missionary, so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ.”
The diocese has been on a synodal journey for a decade, beginning with a Synod on Family Life, convened by then Bishop Robert W. McElroy in 2016.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of that synod. The convocation on Aug. 22 will feature a presentation about the experience of implementing that synod’s recommendations, which included the creation of a diocesan Office for Family Life and Spirituality.
The diocese also held a Synod on Young Adults in 2019. And, in the ensuing years, hosted several rounds of listening sessions at parishes in preparation for the universal Synod on Synodality.
At the beginning of 2024, Cardinal McElroy launched the initiative “Re-Imagining Parish Life and Leadership in a Synodal Church,” starting with 16 pilot parishes.
The goal was to encourage greater participation in the life of the parish, particularly by those who felt excluded, renewing and growing not just the parish, but the Church itself.
Each parish was to identify two goals, one to re-imagine parish life and the other to re-imagine parish leadership. Often, these goals grew out of parish listening sessions.
Then the pastor, supported by a parish synod coordinator and a lay team of parishioners, would develop an action plan to bring the goals to life, using the synodal practices of listening and discerning a path forward together.
Key to this process was an openness to being guided by the Holy Spirit.
By this summer, the number of participating parishes has reached 44 from across the San Diego-Imperial Valley region.
The pastors and lay leaders have shared how working on their goals has positively changed their parishes.
At a synod gathering last Dec. 4, Father Bernardo Lara described the situation at his two parishes in Brawley. Their members were highly polarized along language, social and economic lines, reflecting entrenched attitudes about the other parish’s members.
Using an intentional synodal approach, he said, which included listening sessions that brought people from both parishes together, attitudes began to change.
“The person was not just an idea any longer,” he shared. “It was a person with a face, with a name, with a background, with a family, with a house next to mine.”
The synodal process involved various phases, he continued, each bringing their own successes, including members of both parishes embracing a sense of co-responsibility for what happened at their parish and beyond.
“We started sharing that sense of ‘we’re all in charge of this big boat called Church,’” he said. “And then we moved into another phase, which was evangelization.”
As the synod facilitator, Father Hurley has heard all of these stories, and looks forward to more.
“I think we have a movement happening in the diocese.”
Vatican leader to speak in San Diego
The Diocese of San Diego invites all faithful to hear one of the leading voices in the Universal Church, Sister Nathalie Becquart, who will speak on “Re-Imagining Parish Life in a Synodal Church,” on Friday, Aug. 21, 7 to 9 p.m., at St. Gregory the Great Parish.
Sister Becquart is the Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, the highest-ranking woman in a governance office in the Church, and the first woman able to vote in a universal synod.
A native of France, she is a member of the Congregation of Xavières, a religious institute rooted in Ignatian spirituality and the work of St. Francis Xavier.
