Synod Organizers Are Making Their Crisis of Credibility Worse, by Jonathan Liedl

NEWS ANALYSIS: Those running the Synod on Synodality could be building credibility about the process by acknowledging its limitations and avoiding obvious landmines; instead, they’re only giving Catholics more reasons to be concerned — and they don’t seem to care.

By Jonathan Liedl, EWTN News, September 30, 2022

As it transitions into its continental phase, the multi-year Synod on Synodality process faces an ironic crisis of credibility: How can it be considered an accurate portrayal of Catholics’ experience of how the Church listens, when the Synod itself has largely failed to hear from a significant number of Catholic voices?

At least in the West, participation levels in the diocesan phase of the Synod were abysmally low. The USCCB’s synthesis of diocesan reports indicates that among a U.S. Catholic population of 66.8 million, only 700,000 people —  just over 1% of all U.S. Catholics — participated. Reports from several European countries also indicated paltry participation; in countries like France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and England and Wales only 1% or less of baptized Catholics took part in the Synod. …