Summer 2026 – the halfway point between the end of the 2024 World Synod and the 2028 Ecclesial Assembly. Where do the local Churches stand? What experiences are they making? What are the challenges? Where is the synodal journey heading? Linda Staudt reports and reflects from a Canadian perspective, how listening, discernment, and shared mission are taking concrete form in the life of the Church [*].
A Church Called to Listen
When Pope Francis opened the Synod on Synodality in 2021, he invited Catholics to reflect on what had served the Church well, what required attention, and what hopes they held for her future. At the heart of this global journey was Conversation in the Spirit.
More than a method of discussion, Conversation in the Spirit is a prayerful process of attentive listening, silence, and communal discernment. It helped the Church listen deeply to the lived experience of laity, clergy, religious, and all who share in her mission. Its focus was not debate, but discernment.
As Pope Francis said in his opening address to Synod delegates, “Let us experience this moment of encounter, listening and reflection as a season of grace.” That spirit of grace-filled listening defined the Synod. Conversation in the Spirit offered the Church a practical path toward deeper participation, collaboration, and shared mission.
Learning from Pope Francis and the Synod
“To listen is to lean in softly with the willingness to be changed by what we hear.” — Mark Nepo
Throughout the Synod process, Pope Francis showed a real openness to being changed by what he heard. The global consultations revealed a clear call for the Church to become more inclusive and participatory. In response, even as final preparations were well underway, he announced that he would personally invite seventy lay people—ten from each continental region—to serve as voting delegates at the Synod, with particular attention to women and young people.
That same openness shaped the structure of the Synod itself. What had been planned as a single four-week session in 2023 became a longer process of reflection for the whole Church. Recognizing the need for continued prayer and consultation—not only among delegates, but across the wider Church—Pope Francis extended the Synod to include a second session in 2024. This allowed the Synthesis Document from the first session to return to dioceses around the world for further reflection and discernment.
As Cardinal Mario Grech explained, “We wanted to carry out this wide-ranging consultation in order to remain consistent with the principle of circularity (what comes from the grassroots returns to the grassroots) that animated the entire synod process.” In both process and practice, Pope Francis modelled how authentic listening opens the way to meaningful change.
Synodality in Local Church Life
In his note accompanying the Final Document of the Synod, Pope Francis emphasizes that synodality must now take concrete form in local contexts. That same emphasis continues in the current implementation phase outlined in “Towards the Assemblies 2027–2028”. The document calls local Churches to reread the synodal journey to date and to consider a central question: What concrete form of a missionary synodal Church, and what new paths of synodality, are emerging in your community?
This question offers a helpful framework for local practice.
Stories of Synodality in Local Communities
The stories that follow offer concrete examples of synodality in practice. Drawn from two dioceses in Ontario, Canada, they highlight two areas of focus:
- synodal decision-making within parish life
- synodal collaboration with ministry partners
In both settings, Conversation in the Spirit has become a valuable means of discernment, placing prayer, silence, attentive listening, and dialogue at the heart of decision-making.
Renewing Pastoral Planning
In several Families of Parishes in the Diocese of London, Parish Pastoral Councils revisiting existing pastoral plans widened participation beyond their own membership. A Family of Parishes is a grouping of neighbouring but distinct parishes that share leadership, resources, and a common pastoral mission.
Parishioners were given the current pastoral plan, along with a summary of actions that had already been taken. They were then invited into listening sessions structured around the plan’s specific objectives. For example, one such objective was: “To support and grow our ministries dedicated to aiding the marginalized, demonstrating the love of Jesus to all through our spoken and lived expressions of faith.”
Using Conversation in the Spirit, parishioners reflected on two questions:
- What should we prioritise?
- What bold or hopeful actions could help the parish live this objective more fully?
Insights from these conversations were gathered and shared with the wider community. But the process did not end there. A second stage followed, involving focus groups of those most closely connected to particular ministries, both as providers and as recipients. Guided by the principle “what comes from the grassroots returns to the grassroots,” this stage helped the parish hear voices that might otherwise have gone unheard.
What changed was not only the pastoral plan, but the process itself
Following these two stages of listening and consultation, the Parish Pastoral Council entered its own discernment through Conversation in the Spirit as it revised the plan. What changed was not only the pastoral plan, but the process itself: what might once have been handled primarily by the Parish Pastoral Council became a broader, more inclusive, participatory journey.
Discerning the Future of a Parish Community
A Pastoral Council and Finance Committee of a Family of Parishes began to discern the possible closure of one of the churches, an emotional and challenging process for any parish community.
Rather than hold a single town hall meeting, the parish organized a series of three listening sessions over several weeks, each grounded in Conversation in the Spirit. Parishioners were invited to reflect on three key questions:
- What do you most value about the faith life and faith community of the parish?
- What needs to be embraced, preserved and carried forward if closure were to occur?
- Where should the Family of Parishes dedicate its human and financial resources as it moves forward?
At the end of each listening session, table reflections were shared with the wider parish community. Several themes emerged: welcome, hospitality, and inclusion; preserving the parish’s strong sense of community, sacred heritage, and ministries; and sustaining the mission through shared leadership and active participation. These themes were reflected in the words of parishioners:
“It is important that the other parishes recognize the need for Holy Spirit (name changed) parishioners to be welcomed, included, and not isolated. That welcome should begin before Holy Spirit closes and extend well beyond a single Sunday. It needs to be an active and ongoing process.”
“At the heart of Holy Spirit is the service, dedication and humility of those who serve. This spirit of service needs to be preserved and not taken for granted.”
“Our mission is greater than any individual; we are united in the shared goal of becoming a missionary church.”
This process did not remove the difficulty of the decision, it changed how the decision was made.
With the wider parish community’s reflections before them, the Parish Pastoral Council and Finance Committee entered their own discernment. Each was asked: Having prayerfully discerned the future of the parish, what is your recommendation to the pastor?
While this process did not remove the difficulty of the decision, it changed how the decision was made. It became more inclusive and participatory, inviting those involved to speak, listen, and remain open to being changed by what they heard. Through listening sessions grounded in Conversation in the Spirit, the parish community named what mattered most, helping clarify what should be carried forward if closure became the decision, as was the case. Reflecting a year later on the closure, the pastor wrote:
“I still call the entire journey a ‘miraculous grace’ (even though it was hard for everyone—myself included). I was truly filled with awe when every single Holy Spirit Parish ministry wanted to continue—the choir, Holy Spirit Soup Kitchen, Sewing Circle, and liturgical ministers—and found new places to serve in our other churches. I am also extremely grateful to the other churches in our Family, who took extra care to welcome Holy Spirit members and embraced change to accommodate different ministries and schedules.
Sharing Mission Across Parish, School, and Home
In Ontario, fully funded Catholic schools are among the Church’s most important partners in mission. “Renewing the Promise – A Pastoral Letter for Catholic Education” reaffirms Catholic education as a shared ministry of school, parish, and family, and calls for renewed commitment and deeper collaboration.
In response, pastors, pastoral ministers, principals, and senior administrators from more than half a dozen deaneries and school boards in the Dioceses of London and Hamilton each came together to reflect on their shared journey. Like the invitation Pope Francis extended to the Church worldwide, they were asked what had worked well, what had been difficult, and what hopes they held for the future.
These gatherings took place around round tables, grounded in Conversation in the Spirit and shaped by hospitality, prayer, and relationship-building. Food preceded each gathering, helping create a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Significantly, these gatherings did not remain one-time consultations. Parish and school partners committed to meeting twice a year, returning each time to Conversation in the Spirit. As one participant observed,
“There is a willingness to reach out to each other, to hold each other up, a willingness that was not present previously.”
New forms of cooperation began to take shape
From this shared listening, several key insights emerged: the need to build relationships intentionally and strengthen the “ministry of presence”; the shared responsibility of parish, school, and home for faith formation; the importance of adult faith formation; the essential role of parents and families; and seeing sacramental preparation as the beginning of ongoing discipleship.
Through this process, new forms of cooperation began to take shape, marked by a deeper commitment to relationship-building, shared responsibility for faith formation, and ongoing discipleship with families.
Emerging Practices of Synodality
Taken together, these stories point to emerging paths of synodality in the Church. They reveal what becomes possible when people are given the time, space, and support to listen prayerfully, openly, and with a willingness to be changed by what they hear. In this way, synodality becomes a lived expression of a Church that listens, discerns, and walks forward together.
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Linda Staudt is one of four lay Canadians appointed by Pope Francis as a voting delegate to the Synod on synodality. She is Co-Chair of the Synod Committee for the Diocese of London (Ontario). She devoted 25 years to Catholic education with the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, and later served for eight years as Director of Education for the London District Catholic School Board.
[*]Part 3 of the series „From the Synod 2024 to the Ecclesial Assembly 2028 – Interim Reflections from Around the World“ with contributions from Africa (July 20), Latin America (July 22), North America (July 24), Europe (July 27), the Middle East (July 28), and Asia (July 29).
This contribution is also published in German.
Header image provided by the author.
