By Bishop Oscar Cantú, bishop of San Jose, California
National Catholic Reporter, Feb. 3, 2022
Something dramatic happened in the development of Vatican II’s document on the church, Lumen Gentium, in 1964. The original draft of the document, sharply criticized by the council fathers, was discarded in favor of one that placed a chapter on the people of God (Chapter 2) before a chapter on the hierarchy of the church (Chapter 3).
This move was astounding for a church that had become accustomed to a cleric-centric culture. But the change was not a novelty in the church; it was based deeply in Scripture and tradition. While maintaining and clarifying the proper and essential role of the hierarchy in the church, this shift in Lumen Gentium signaled a correction to the excesses of a clerical culture.
I witnessed a similar shift, not in an ecclesial document but in ecclesial practice, from Nov. 21-28, 2021, at the first Ecclesial Assembly of the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean in Cuautitlán, México. The assembly — organized by the Latin American bishops’ council, commonly known as CELAM — was the culmination of several months of consultation at local, regional and national levels across 20 nations, in which nearly 70,000 people contributed, either as individuals or on behalf of their communities.
I had been invited to the ecclesial assembly as one of a handful of in-person participants from the United States. (Seventy others from the U.S. participated online.) What I witnessed was not only fascinating, prayerful and engaging, it was a manifestation of the content and spirit of Lumen Gentium, particularly Chapter 2, “The People of God.” It was an experience of ecclesial synodality at work.
I must confess that I had concerns about Pope Francis’ expressed desire that synodality be implemented at every level of the church’s life. In Cuautitlán, my misgivings about synodality were dispelled.
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