Eucharist, Synodality, and Ethics: Making Connections

Abstract

The central premise of this article is that synodality ought to be grounded in the Eucharist. The author explores the implications of this claim in the areas of ecclesiology and ethics. On the side of ecclesiology, the author argues that the Eucharist is the ritual and theological center of a synodal church. In the context of its own life, considered not only at an abstract theological level but at a practical and political level as well, the church cannot be synodal if it is not attentive to its Eucharistic origins. Synodality is the key in which communion is realized. The author discusses this idea in the context of the Eucharist Revival in the United States and in connection to baptism and the ecclesiology of the People of God. On the side of ethics, the author develops an account of synodality as a virtue. Synodality is the virtue that shapes the church and its members in order to realize communion. Its object is the right use of power. An ethics of synodality, the author argues, entails both reform in the church itself and a commitment on the part of the church and its members to a politics of the universal common good and the building of a just social order.

The first global assembly of the Synod on Synodality in the Catholic Church has now concluded, and enough has been said concerning synodality to identify two main areas of concern. First, there is the perennial preoccupation with foundations. According to which precedents in the tradition is this new synodal way justified? What is the theological and doctrinal basis of this vision? Are we dealing here with an effectively new model of church or only a new style of being church in our present context? If synodality is indeed an ecclesiological principle, how does it relate to other, established principles, which help us to understand the mystery of the church? The concern with foundations is a concern about continuity and change. Synodality must have roots in the historical self-understanding of the church and its practices, while at the same time positioning the church to discover itself anew. Second, there are legitimate concerns about process. There simply does not exist a detailed script for how the synodal process will work or where it will end. Preparations for the Synod and the global assemblies themselves are part of an experiment where mistakes must be identified, best practices discovered, and procedures revised. Already serious questions have been raised around the shortage of buy-in from bishops, who can unilaterally suppress the participation of their local churches; barriers to listening to voices on the margins; the distribution of power and the authority to make decisions; and other issues. Any serious engagement in the synodal process, or in theological reflection on the meaning of this process, must anticipate and confront these kinds of shortcomings. It will continue to be necessary to leave room for error and for trying again.

In this essay, I wish to begin with foundations and to examine in particular the relationship between the Eucharist and synodality. This will lead to reflections on ecclesiology and ethics, and in the end, provide a vision of synodality for a church “on the way”, which might indeed leave room for error and for trying again. Why begin with the Eucharist? What warrant do we have for reading synodality in light of communion? There are certainly historical reasons, insofar as church synods and Eucharistic praxis have always been closely linked. There are also compelling theological reasons, which touch on the life and identity of the church today. Pope Francis and the International Theological Commission (ITC) envision synodality as an essential step in the implementation of the agenda of Vatican II, particularly its ecclesiology of communion. Thus, in today’s conversations about synodality, the Eucharist and its implications for the identity and mission of the church are never far away. Given that starting point, I wish to argue that reading synodality in light of the Eucharist requires us to envision synodality as the practical outcome of the church’s nature as communion and as an ecclesial mode of living out the paschal mystery—the mystery of Christ’s life, passion, death, and resurrection for the life of the world. This paschal paradigm, oriented to communion, has both ecclesiological and ethical implications. Therefore, following an initial discussion about the Eucharist, I will explore both of those territories and attempt to move in the direction of a more robustly eucharistic and, therefore, hopeful picture of synodality for the life of the church today.

1. Turning to Eucharist: Synodality as the Realization of Communion

Liturgical theologian Joris Geldhof has recently argued that a “spirituality of communion” ought to ground our commitment to synodality (Geldhof 2023). It is in the Eucharist, he observes, that Christian initiation culminates, that we are drawn into the communion of the Body of Christ, and that the spiritus liturgicus called for by Vatican II is born. The Eucharist is the point of origin for a spirituality through which the church itself is constituted and by which it lives out the paschal mystery. As such, this spirituality of communion must be the driving force behind the synodal process.

Geldhof takes up an important, though understudied, theme in recent conversations about the nature of synodality. Only a handful of scholarly theological articles in the past decade have dealt directly with the relationship between the Eucharist or liturgy and synodality (Gefaell 2019; O’Loughlin 2023). And yet it has been a consistent theme in curial reflections. The ITC’s 2018 document on synodality, for instance, describes “personal conversion to the spirituality of communion” as a vital step toward building the synodal life of the church (International Theological Commission 2018, #107). The document takes the phrase from John Paul II, who at the turn of the millennium described the spirituality of communion as a source of trust and openness in pastoral care (John Paul II 2001, #43–45). The ITC redeploys the term in connection to synodal renewal, describing the spirituality of communion as a principle of Christian formation that enables a person “to live in communion the grace received in baptism and brought to fulfillment in the Eucharist” (International Theological Commission 2018, #107). The central ritual theological locus of this formation, says the document, is “the Eucharistic synaxis,” which through each of its liturgical elements shapes in its participants an affectus synodalis—a heart that is prepared for listening, dialogue, and communal discernment (International Theological Commission 2018, #109).

Thus, the ITC assigns the Eucharist a distinctly pedagogical function. The eucharistic liturgy is the place in which we learn those skills and dispositions that enable us, as individual Christians, to contribute meaningfully to the synodal path. The invocation of the Trinity, confession of sin and reconciliation, listening to the Word of God, sharing communion, and sending forth in mission train participants in an affectus synodalis (International Theological Commission 2018, #109). This pedagogical framing is situated, however, within a deeper theological vision. For the Eucharist is not just any religious practice, and it is not merely functional. The Eucharist is the heart of an economy of grace through which the church is called to synodality, and which makes synodal practice possible. The ITC document puts it this way:

The Church’s synodal path is shaped and nourished by the Eucharist. […] The source and summit of synodality are in the celebration of the liturgy and—in a unique way—in our full, conscious and active participation in the Eucharistic synaxis. […] The Eucharistic synaxis expresses and brings into being the ecclesial “we” of the communio sanctorum, in which the faithful are made sharers of God’s grace in its many forms. […] The Lord pours out His Spirit in all places and at all times on the People of God, to allow them to share in His life, feeding them with the Eucharist, and guiding them in synodal communion.

(International Theological Commission 2018, #47–48)

Ultimately, the Eucharist is the ground of communion, which is the essential identity of the church and the goal of its being in the world. Synodality is the realization of this communion in the power of the Spirit and therefore the mode in which the church actualizes its purpose and nature. As such, a meaningful theological account of synodality requires an ecclesiology of communion. The church cannot be synodal if it does not attend to its eucharistic origins and its own being as communion. Inversely, the church cannot live out its eucharistic mandate—its responsibility to live out the paschal mystery for the life of the world—if it does not embrace synodality.

These insights, which preceded the synodal process itself, are repeated after the Continental Stage in the working document for the first global session of the Synod, Instrumentem laboris, which states the point succinctly: “A synodal church cannot be understood other than within the horizon of communion, which is always also a mission […]” (XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops 2023, #20). The language of mission refers to the last of three terms that Pope Francis has offered as focal points for discussions on synodality: communion, participation, and mission (Pope Francis 2021). Communion is the essence of the church’s eucharistic identity which is expressed through synodal efforts. Participation is the norm that requires all people impacted by the life of the church to participate as responsible contributors to the life of the church. Mission is the principle that carries this work into the world. The working document’s reference to mission ought to remind us that the association of Eucharist, communion, and synodality entails not merely an abstract, theological connection but concrete practical and political consequences. A church that understands itself as communion is required to act as communion. Synodality and its practices and principles—like listening, dialogue, communal discernment, co-responsibility, and participation—are instruments with which the church must articulate the mystery of its innermost being as a concrete program of action within the world.

From this, it is clear that the journeying together of the synodal process cannot and must not end in abstraction. It must lead to concrete reform of the church as an institution, in which issues of power and injustice are confronted head-on, not for external or purely sociological reasons but for theological reasons and in light of the call to communion. It must also lead to action on behalf of the marginalized and the building of a more just society. I will explore this argument more fully later in this essay. For now, the point is simply that the responsibility of the church to act as communion—as a eucharistic body that follows the itinerary of grace into every corner of existence—will require a willingness on the part of the church not only to evangelize itself but also to transform culture and to contribute to a politics of the universal common good.1 Against any tendency to spiritualize an ecclesiology of communion, reducing it to some vague sense of belonging or warrant for internal reform, the mandate of synodality grounded in the eucharist is to make communion real in the world. A synodal church is one that puts the values of synodality to work for the good of all of God’s creatures, imprinting the possibility of communion on all things in the conviction that grace in the end will bring that final goal to fruition.

Such a perspective on synodality and the Eucharist should help us, I think, to reframe current conversations in the United States around the meaning of the Eucharist for faithful Catholics. At least partially in response to the infamous Pew Research Center survey, which seemed to indicate that most US Catholics do not believe in transubstantiation, the American bishops have initiated a three-year National Eucharistic Revival (Smith 2019).2 This revival initiative, alongside a national pilgrimage and the first National Eucharistic Congress in 83 years, is focused squarely on increasing devotion to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and promoting a more accurate understanding of church teaching on transubstantiation (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 2023). In the context of American Catholic polarization, the Eucharistic Revival is easily imagined in opposition to the path of synodality and the priorities of Pope Francis. As Lucas Briola has argued, however, this need not be the case (Briola 2023). We do ourselves a disservice if we fail to bring these major ecclesial events into dialogue. Briola writes that a revival of devotion to the Eucharist can restore the Christological center to synodality, foster tangible and embodied practices of communion, and remind us in our synodal efforts that communion is not an achievement but a gift (Briola 2023, pp. 7–10). In turn, the work of synodality can combat a privatized approach to the Eucharist in favor of one that impacts the shape of life in community, encourages concrete ethical commitment to self-giving in the context of ecclesial communion, and orients the church to mission (Briola 2023, pp. 10–12).

I believe that Briola is quite right. Devotion to the Eucharist, even in its paraliturgical and ocular forms, is not the enemy of communion or synodality. On the contrary, grounding synodality in the Eucharist may even be strengthened by such devotion. What must not be missed, however, is the linkage of devotion to its ecclesial and social implications. Briola points out that in their preparatory document for the Revival, The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church, the American bishops do in fact stress the social, ethical, and missiological consequences of the Eucharist (United States Catholic Conference of Bishops 2021). There is a moral transformation that is brought about by our participation in the Eucharist and by our deepened incorporation into the communion of the church. This transformation, the bishops say, orients us toward all human beings and especially toward the vulnerable in love. Lay people have a special responsibility to “transform social relations in accord with the love of Christ” and therefore to work toward the common good (United States Catholic Conference of Bishops 2021, #36). Closely tied to this ethical orientation is a missionary impulse that flows from the encounter with Christ in the Eucharist. The transforming love displayed in the Eucharist demands to be proclaimed and to be communicated to others. The Eucharistic encounter with Christ implies evangelization.

While commendable, this theological framing of the outcome of eucharistic devotion strikes me as problematically individualistic. Perhaps because the Eucharistic Revival is born of anxiety concerning the “catechetical failure” of disbelief in the real presence, its message is addressed principally to individuals who ought to believe and to act in accordance with that belief (Cozzens 2022). What is lacking is a theologically nuanced understanding of the relationship between individual and corporate agency in the context of Eucharistic theology. It is not enough to demand that individual persons believe in the real presence and respond as individuals by acting well within the world. For the presence of Christ in the elements of bread and wine is not limited to those elements, nor is its ultimate purpose achieved at the consecration or in the awakening of moral consciousness in each communicant. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the beginning of the presence of Christ in the church as the church: a corporate body and corporate agent transformed in union with its Lord. The Eucharist creates communion. As such, individual persons act for the common good and proclaim the kerygma not only because we assent to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist but because we are transformed together into that presence for the life of the world. The corporate body of the church, in and through its members, carries out the mission of Christ in creation. Individual moral agency is intelligible only within the context of corporate agency.

I believe that the Eucharistic Revival in the United States must energize Eucharistic devotion in a way that empowers Catholics to link the presence of Christ in the Eucharist to his presence in the communion of the church itself. Only on the basis of such an integral Eucharistic spirituality can the church effectively realize its responsibility to act as communion, which is to practice synodality. Once again, the Eucharistic Revival led by the American Bishops and the synodal process currently underway because of Pope Francis must be linked if either is to be effective.

2. Ecclesiological Implications: A Church on the Way

I will turn in the next section to some of the ethical themes I have raised already, but first I think it is necessary to discuss in more detail the ecclesiological implications of the connection I am proposing between the Eucharist and synodality. There are two key questions to address. First, how does a strong emphasis on the Eucharist as the ground of synodality square with an equally important emphasis on baptism? If one looks at the Working Document and also the Final Document of the Continental Stage in North America, the stress on the Eucharist from the curial documents mentioned above gradually disappears. In the Working Document, the words “Eucharist” or “Eucharistic” appear only nine times, and in all but three instances the usage refers to the Eucharist as a source of division or a place of woundedness (General Secretariat of the Synod 2022). Eucharistic liturgy is referenced once as a source of unity (General Secretariat of the Synod 2022, #89) and once as a means of formation for synodality (General Secretariat of the Synod 2022, #82). The Final Document mentions the Eucharist only three times: once as a source of suffering for those who are kept from the sacrament (North American Synod Team 2022, #27), once as the antidote to polarization (North American Synod Team 2022, #54), and once in a quotation from a delegate who describes the Eucharist as “the center of our lives” (North American Synod Team 2022, #23). Communion is one of the key theological themes throughout the documents, but its principal foundation is baptism. From the North American standpoint, in fact, it is our common baptism that informs the entire synodal endeavor. In baptism, we are called by God and gifted by God with dignity, placed in communion with Christ and one another, and sent forth on mission (North American Synod Team 2022, #13). This provides the underpinning for all of the other key ideas in the document’s framing of synodality, including co-responsibility, trust and inclusivity, and “moving out of the tent”. Thus, synodal conversations in North America have gravitated to baptism and not to the Eucharist as the theological key to synodality.

What then are we to make of the role of the Eucharist? I suggest that as the synodal process continues to unfold, we should devote attention both to the starting point and also to the end point of our sacramental life in Christ. Baptism is indeed the source of our common dignity and the basis of our co-responsibility in pursuit of a more synodal church. It is the beginning of our life in Christ and our call to missionary discipleship. But the goal of that life and mission is the person of Christ himself, whom we encounter and into whom we are continually transformed in the Eucharist. A synodal church should understand itself not only as answering a baptismal vocation but also as embodying a eucharistic mystery in itself and for the world. The Eucharist is the promise of the fulfillment of that possibility, a promise so sure that it is already becoming real on the altar and in the struggle of the church to practice synodality. Ecclesial communion based on baptism safeguards our dignity and belonging. When it is also based on the Eucharist, it nourishes our confidence that what we seek is possible, that it is on its way, and that as we continue carrying on our critical and creative work, that gift will appear.

Second, how does an ecclesiology of communion, grounded in the Eucharist, relate to an ecclesiology of the People of God? I wish to argue that these models are interrelated, and that both of them together can contribute to our understanding of synodality. The relationship between the two, however, has been fraught. Jose Comblin argued that although an ecclesiology of the People of God was the principal contribution of Vatican II, it was suppressed under the pontificate of John Paul II, through the efforts of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. It was effectively replaced with the vaguer notion of communio, which was another important ecclesiological theme of the council (Comblin 2004). The concern, it would seem, was that People of God emphasizes the sociological aspect of the church at the expense of its theological dimension (Ratzinger and Messori 1985). To imagine the church preeminently as a “people” risks reducing the church to a purely human society governed by temporal principles with no transcendent point of reference. The idea of communion, on the other hand, affords the church a sacramental foundation and orients it toward a properly theological horizon.

In the context of synodality, however, no such conflict has materialized. Both concepts are expressions of a unified ecclesiology in which the sociological and theological aspects of the church are integrated. According to the ITC, the ecclesiology of the People of God reminds the church of our common baptismal dignity and mission, exercised through diverse gifts and charisms. It stands alongside the notion of communion, which points to the inner mystery of the church—union with God and one another—upon which the entire work of God’s people is based and toward which it is directed (International Theological Commission 2018, #6). In my view, the integration of both models is entirely appropriate and necessary, given the sacramental underpinnings of the idea of communion. The church cannot celebrate the sacraments, and it cannot itself be a sacrament of the reign of God, if it does not possess both a material aspect and also a spiritual one. If the church as communion is grounded in the Eucharist, it must also be the sacramental embodiment of Christ, who is human and also divine. The concepts of the People of God and communion cooperate in attending to both sides of the ecclesiological equation.

Moreover, I believe it is a mistake to characterize the ecclesiology of the People of God as primarily sociological. In the original context of Lumen Gentium and in subsequent theological work, the People of God refers not to a purely human association of individuals who believe in Christ but rather to a communion of persons established by Christ and sharing in his threefold office (Second Vatican Council 1964, #9–17). This is a new people in whom the mystery of God’s own life is already coming to be in the world and which finds itself always on the way toward the fullness of that mystery. The People of God is therefore a pilgrim people. Operating within this eschatological frame of reference, it is both a theological and a sociological reality. The church embodies the mystery of communion precisely by living in the world as a historical community. The ITC connects the work of this community to synodality: “In this ecclesiological context, synodality is the specific modus vivendi et operandi of the church, the People of God, which reveals and gives substance to her being as communion when all her members journey together, gather in assembly and take an active part in her evangelising mission” (International Theological Commission 2018, #6).

As I have argued, synodality is the realization of the church’s being as communion. It is the practice of the People of God who know themselves as a community on the way to fullness of union with God and one another. The pursuit of this promise requires exactly those norms that the concept of the People of God on pilgrimage implies: involvement, participation, listening, and journeying together.

It is not surprising, then, that in the documents that were published during the Continental Stage in North America, the primary ecclesiological touchstone for the synodal process was the model of the People of God. Far from weakening the case for an ecclesiology of communion grounded in the Eucharist, the “people” model strengthens it. The concept of the People of God underscores the nature of the church as a pilgrim community, journeying toward the destiny of all things in God. It complements the notion of communion by underscoring a sense of human dynamism, historical tangibility, and forward movement in the life of the church on earth. Lumen Gentium deliberately places this dynamism of the People of God in the context of eschatological expectation:

Moving forward through trial and tribulation, the Church is strengthened by the power of God’s grace, which was promised to her by the Lord, so that in the weakness of the flesh she may not waver from perfect fidelity, […] and moved by the Holy Spirit may never cease to renew herself, until through the Cross she arrives at the light which knows no setting.

(Second Vatican Council 1964, #9)

While the model of the church as communion emphasizes the inbreaking of eschatological reality into history, through the sacraments and koinonia in the church, the model of the People of God underscores the responsibility of the church to keep moving forward, to continue renewing itself, as it approaches its goal. These two models together invite us to understand synodality as a gradually evolving practice that requires hope, which even now is transforming the world: an unfolding process rooted in the essential nature of a church on the way to fullness of life in God.

3. Ethical Implications: Synodality as a Virtue

As I have indicated, the claim that synodality is the realization of communion has not only ecclesiological but also ethical consequences. The mission to which synodality gives shape, which is the embodiment of the paschal mystery for the life of the world, embraces not only evangelization in the religious sense but also in the ethical sense. A synodal church formed by the Eucharist is one that carries the living presence of Christ into creation through a whole style of life, directed to the promise of communion. Synodality according to this interpretation cannot be reduced to an internal, ecclesial principle but must function in addition as an outward-facing ethical principle. To provide substance to this argument, I would like in this section to examine synodality as a virtue: a quality of character belonging to a church on the way. My hope is that this experiment will help us to move beyond the usual kind of ecclesiological reflection, which pictures synodality as a mainly procedural principle, in favor of an approach to synodality that enables the church to ask serious ethical questions about its own functioning and its own contributions to the common good.

To speak in terms of virtue is to ask the question of the good life from the standpoint of character. What kind of person should I be? How does a good community function? What would a good person do in this context? These are questions of virtue. They assume that we can know what the best human life looks like not because we have defined its parameters through rules or precepts but rather because we have seen it embodied in persons. The virtues are precisely those qualities of the person that enable them to live well. They are not discrete traits or characteristics but assemblies of attitudes, dispositions, skills, and ways of seeing that together form habits. These habits develop with practice, and little by little they become second-nature. As we grow in virtue, we acquire moral inertia. We act more and more reliably in favor of the good, which realizes our purpose and nature. This process of growth is continual. The further along the path of virtue we progress, the more we realize we have to grow. We practice, we strive, and with the help of grace, we move forward.

What then are we to make of synodality as a virtue? Moral theologian Emmanuel Agius has recently suggested that synodality can help us to answer three fundamental questions: (1) What kind of church are we now? (2) What kind of church do we want to become? (3) How do we get there (Agius 2023)? Once again, these are questions of virtue.3 They trace a journey of moral conversion from where the church is now to where it ought to go. They invite critical and creative reflection on the part of this community, which knows itself to be on the way to the fullest realization of its identity, but which is not there yet. If synodality is a virtue, it must help us therefore to look honestly at where the church is now, where it ought to be, and what concrete steps might get us there. Synodality is a quality of character belonging to a church that is on the way—always growing in the realization of its own nature as communion, not only for its own sake but for the life of the world.

Let us consider the conceptual anatomy of the virtue of synodality, in order to appreciate some of its practical implications. Like every other virtue, synodality must have an object, which is the matter in relation to which it enables us to act well.4 The object of synodality, I would argue, is power in the church. Synodality is the virtue that enables the church and its members to manage the distribution, organization, and execution of power well. It shapes the corporate body of the church and its individual members in the habit of sharing power and holding power accountable. As such, synodality is more than a simple procedure for gathering public opinion in the church or assessing the reception of magisterial pronouncements. A synodal process that pays lip service to the sensus fidelium and operates within an otherwise authoritarian hierarchical structure is not truly virtuous. The virtue of synodality inheres not within the institutional church but within the body of the faithful, and it requires the reasonable, ethical distribution and management of power. This means concretely that all who are baptized have a responsibility to contribute meaningfully to church governance at every level. Authority belongs in the first instance to Christ and by extension to the whole People of God. Hierarchical offices must function to serve the baptismal authority of the whole church and each member within it, while at the same time ensuring that responsibilities are distributed justly and in light of the distinct charisms and vocations of individual persons and communities.

In his recent work on hierarchalism and synodality, James Keenan has pointed out that what stands in the way of reform in the church is not simply a culture of clericalism, or “precious priests” who overestimate their own power and value in contrast to the laity, but rather a network of power that systematically removes accountability from ordained men and actively resists the emergence of leadership outside the episcopacy (Keenan 2022, 2023). It is not simply the weight of history or tradition, or even anxiety about schism, that stands in the way of the church moving forward. It is the vicious exercise of power. Synodality is worthy of being called a virtue only to the extent that it effectively moderates this use of power and moves the church toward the mean: co-responsibility within an institutional architecture marked by listening, participation, and real accountability. This is the middle point between two vices that lie at the extremes. Hierarchalism, in Keenan’s sense, would be the vice of defect: too little moderation of power. The opposite would be the vice of excess: an ecclesial populism with so much moderation of power that little can be accomplished. This vice would replace the critical and creative reception of tradition with mere majority of opinion. Authentic exercise of power in the church, shaped by the virtue of synodality, is neither totalitarian nor majoritarian. It is marked by listening, collaboration, discernment, accountability, and justice.

The virtue of synodality must also have an end, or a goal for the sake of which it regulates our conduct. I believe the end of synodality is communion. Perhaps this seems obvious, but now I am adding to our previous ecclesiological discussion an ethical dimension. What might we learn if we were to understand communion not only as a mystical principle inherent in the church but also as an ethical principle for shaping the dynamics of power in church life? Communion is the moral horizon toward which the virtue of synodality is directed. It is a divine gift and an eschatological promise, but it is also a moral responsibility. Communion must be lived. It must be embodied. This will require a concrete commitment to practices and processes that realize communion at every level of church life. These include the continued pursuit of ecumenical goals, promotion of lay people and especially women to offices of leadership in the church, development of more robust catechesis for children as well as adults, amplification of excluded voices, building pastoral accountability for local bishops, and promoting ecclesial participation of lay people and religious independent of episcopal authority. Of course, translating our apprehension of the goal into action within a lived context is not an easy thing. It will require practice, and it will require revision. The virtues are where principles meet reality. Synodality as a virtue must be reflexive and continually reimagined: the product of a shared and ongoing conversion among the people of God committed to journeying together.

Importantly, virtues do not exist in isolation. The classical tradition tells us, in fact, that in a final sense, all of the virtues are united. For a Christian thinker like Thomas Aquinas, this was so because every virtue is rooted in, directed toward, and reconciled with the love of God. Charity is the form of the virtues, wrote Aquinas (Thomas 1920, II-II, Q. 23, Art. 8). We might think of the virtue of synodality, therefore, as a specification of love or charity in the context of the being and action of the church. If synodality is what communion looks like and communion is the sacramental participation of the church in the very life of God who is love, then synodality is a form of love. Is this the love among siblings in Christ, who share a common baptism? It surely is. The church withers away if it is not a community of love among equals in Christ. Ecumenical goals, of course, remain a priority. Not all of the baptized share a common Eucharist, and the love that is practiced among different Christian communities is neither simple nor perfect. This love, however, is a Christian responsibility. Moreover, love cannot be confined within the church, either in an institutional sense or even broadly conceived as the People of God. The love that flows from the church as communion, grounded in the Eucharist, must find its way into the world. This means that synodality as a form of charity must also seek justice. We owe other persons a listening ear, an open heart, and the right to participate not only because they are Christian but because they are humans who possess inviolable dignity and a destiny in God.

From here, the interconnection of synodality to other virtues begins to appear. Synodality is not just an internal, procedural principle for the church. It is a virtue that carries love into the world and demands justice within the vast networks of relationships where the church and its members find themselves. Drawing on Keenan’s “new cardinal virtues,” I would emphasize that the work of synodality will require fidelity and self-care among those who seek a better church and world (Keenan 1995). Fidelity to an imperfect church and other imperfect institutions that shape our common life requires commitment and endurance. But this must be balanced with a commitment to the well-being of one’s own body and spirit. No one should push themselves beyond what they can endure or allow their dignity to be eroded through participation in the work of synodality. The work of synodality will also require humility. It will rely for its energy on faith and hope. Synodality thus collaborates with a host of other virtues in regulating power and seeking to realize communion in the church, the social order, and all of creation.

The ethics of synodality that I am now unfolding operates in two distinct but interrelated territories. First, it is an ethics of the church, for the church. Since synodality, as I have said, serves not only our baptismal dignity but also our human dignity, it must apply to ecclesial life the same principles that safeguard our humanity in the public sphere. The church and its practices are never exempt from the scrutiny of justice or other norms that govern political communities. Synodality will require us to ask serious ethical questions about church life. Is the way we practice liturgy ethical? Are our systems for making decisions just? Do our hospitals, schools, and parishes promote equity and the integrity of creation? The church as a sacrament of the reign of God is in the world and of the world, even though its origin and destiny lie beyond history. Like any historical community, therefore, a synodal church requires a clear and actionable ethics. Second, the ethics of synodality is an ethics of the church for the world. If a synodal church is to take itself seriously as the realization of communion, then it must be committed to politics of the universal common good and to the building of structures of justice. It must examine its ethical responsibilities beyond internal affairs and beyond compensatory charity and step into a role of advocacy for the flourishing of all human persons, communities, and creation. The primary function of the church is not simply to save souls for heaven or to send good Christians into the world to tend its affairs. It is instead to embody the reign of God in history and thus to imprint the promise of communion on historical processes and in the practice of historical relationships. This is achieved through the embodied virtue of synodality, which ought to shape both the corporate body of the church and the bodies of its individual members. Put differently, synodality is the virtue that enables a pilgrim church to journey well: it enables the People of God and its members to travel with skill and vision through the challenges of history, to respond well to what the signs of the times require, and to work for the transformation of the social and created order toward the universal common good, which is the destiny of all.

4. Conclusions: Synodality in Progress

To read synodality in light of the Eucharist reveals its significant ecclesiological and ethical implications. Synodality as the realization of communion is a key practice of the People of God, who journey toward eschatological fullness, entirely aware of and responsive to the challenges of history and conscious of the church’s need to leave room for error and for trying again. Synodal renewal is the mark of a pilgrim church on the way. Moreover, synodality is a virtue. It is a quality of character for the church and its members, perennially under development, that empowers human beings to live out the paschal mystery for the life of the world. Joris Geldhof sees the wider implications of such a Eucharistic spirituality clearly when he writes that “what is at stake in the Eucharist is the full transformation of reality as one knows it, so that the world becomes a better place to live for all humankind as well as for other species, not only on their own, but together” (Geldhof 2023, p. 86). The Eucharist is not just for the church; it is for the world. It is Christ given for all, so that all things might experience life abundant and one day achieve their goal of union with God. The role of the church is to receive the gift of Christ in the Eucharist not as a prize but as a promise. This promise will be fulfilled ultimately by the power of God beyond historical time, but it is coming to be in history through the holiness that is realized in the life of the church and its people. This holiness, which glimpses the fullness of communion to come, is embodied not only in eucharistic piety but also in eucharistic action: action for the universal common good, for justice, on behalf of the most vulnerable and all creation.

Synodality, when rooted in the Eucharist, turns out to be more than just a model for church life. It is a model and a guide for Christian life as lived in the world: a journey marked by listening, by a privileging of voices left out, by holding authority accountable, and by collaborating together so that all may flourish. Of course, just as the moral life of individual persons unfolds gradually, so too does synodality in the life of the church. Synodality is always “in progress”, and it requires openness to revision. It is an ongoing practice that will sometimes produce renewal and sometimes setbacks. Nonetheless, it requires the commitment of all people who wish to see the church flourish in the new millennium. A synodal church is a church on the way: an imperfect church straining toward the horizon of its own perfection in God. It is a church grounded in the Eucharist that carries the presence of Christ—the one in whom communion is realized—into the whole world. It is a church that strives to be ethical in its life and in its work for the common good of all things. It is a church that knows it always has more work to do. This is an ecclesial and ethical responsibility: an answer to a divine summons to become more fully the People of God in history.