Page 22 - Inter Nos 2021-10

We live in an age in which people are increasingly aware of their freedom, autonomy, and agency in
every realm of life and conscious of their dignity. They have passed on from a premodern world of
heteronomy of letting others decide to a modern conception of the world in which they can think and
decide for themselves and hold their views and opinions. Affirmation of the people's subjectivity and
their aspirations to be active agents does not allow them to be treated as objects and commanded
over or patronised. Well-meant patronising also takes away people's subjectivity and agency which
they value and cherish very much. On the other hand, there is a perception that the Church is
operating with a pre-modern rural mindset and feudal mode of exercising authority and has not
addressed the transformations of culture, values, and modes of behaviour in which the world has
grown, especially with fast-growing urbanisation. This is quite intriguing since freedom, dignity and
agency of the people upheld by modernity belong to the core values of Christianity itself. The early
Christian communities were profoundly aware of the freedom Jesus brought to them from the narrow
confines of Judaism, its laws, customs and traditions. Christians breathed the air of freedom within
their communities.

There is also a significant second development. We have passed on from a mechanistic and
deterministic worldview of Newtonian physics to a new quantum conception of the universe. In
mechanistic vision, all the parts are moved by a motor, and any of the parts is replaceable. As a
result, in this conception, everything moves along predictable lines. But, on the other hand, in the
quantum conception of the universe, everything moves everything else in a chain of interdependence
where every part is in a dynamic process with the rest, allowing for surprises in the absence of total
predictability. Moreover, there is something called the butterfly effect. It means even the tiniest
element can, in the end, produce a large effect as in weather conditions where even the flapping of
wings by butterflies could completely change the direction of a cyclone. This new integral and
interdependent worldview has become sharper with growing attention to ecological reflections.

The above two approaches of science also have repercussions on how leadership is conceived and
exercised today in the Church. There is a rightful aspiration that the mechanistic model of leadership
gives place to an organic model that is sensitive to the butterfly effect and hence takes into serious
account every member of the Church community involving the synergy and cooperation of
everyone. This modern scientific intuition of reality was theologically expressed by St Paul when he
figured the Church as a body- and indeed the body of Christ in which all the members are bound in a
relationship of interdependence and each member is indispensable and plays its unique role (I Cor.
12: 12-27; Rom 12: 3-8). There is no high and low - a worldly and caste parameter -but everyone is
of equal dignity with different functions even as they are endowed with different charisms and gifts.
The ones considered “smallest” in the Church community could significantly affect its life and
mission. What affects the tiniest member affects everyone. “If one member suffers, all suffer
together” (I Co. 12:26). Hence, nothing could be neglected and sidelined. That is again why Church
is not a democracy where only the majority decides; much less is it a monarchy where one person
decides, but rather it is a communion of minds and hearts united in faith, love and hope. Not all
voices speak with the same volume, and it is therefore imperative to create the space and time,
especially for the little voices to be heard. God was not in the strong wind, earthquake, or fire but in
the 'still, small voice (I Kings 19:12).

It appears to me that synodality reflects both a modern scientific view of the world and the best
Christian tradition of what the Church ought to be in its life and mission. A Church conceived in
clerical mode with a hierarchical mindset of high and low - secundum sub et supra - could engender
a pathology of ecclesial sclerosis causing many parts of the body of the Church to be benumbed and
become dysfunctional. Moreover, it can harm the Church by disregarding the effect the most
neglected members could contribute to the Church community. A case in point is the role of women
in the Church, which needs to be rethought in new terms and in a new framework than
contraposition of male and female. The whole current discourse is bound to change the question of

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