More Than Listening is Needed for Synodality: Observations Based on the Australian Plenary Council and the Church in the New Testament

Abstract

This essay will examine how the Australian Plenary Council and the church revealed in the New Testament can help us come to a deeper understanding of the nature and practice of synodality. The first part will look at how the Plenary Council was envisaged as a response to the call for synodality, the preparations for the Council, the composition of its membership, and the foci of the Council’s deliberations, so as to make suggestions about how a Synod could be organised and conducted. This could be called an investigation into the “body” of synodality. The second part will examine the church in the New Testament from the perspective of being in both _koinonia_ and _homothumadon_, in the hope that such an investigation can help us develop a synodal process which, through both “listening” and “looking,” can come as close as possible to consensus. This could be called an investigation into the “soul” of synodality.