Synodality and becoming part of the family
Local
Qwayne Guevara, who will host a Synod formation session in Adelaide on the topic of Communion and Co-Responsibility in a Fragmented World on Wednesday 6 May, is quite brilliant on organisation.
A routine request from The Southern Cross for some photographs to accompany this story led to hundreds of (high quality) pics appearing in my inbox almost instantly. Many are taken at the recent Synod in Parramatta where Qwayne she was the lead facilitator for the diocese’s first Synod (2023–2024) and played a key role in developing the diocesan pastoral plan.
The revelation is in the detail, tables and tables of attendees are seen to be focusing, smiling and enraptured at times, the speakers seemingly captivating and none less so than the former immigration lawyer Qwayne, now the Facilitator for Formation and Young People at the National Centre for Evangelisation of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC).
Born in the Philippines, she moved to Australia with her family as a young child and her ministry is informed, says a bio, ‘by her early experiences of injustice and her commitment to synodality and accompaniment’.
“I think when you’re young and you’ve encountered quite a bit of injustice and you’ve been encouraged through education to really think about how you can impact the world for good,” Qwayne said. “I just had these big dreams and even before that I wanted to be an astronaut…”
Her role with the ACBC means she’ll take in a trip to Port Pirie while she is in Adelaide, part of a plan to visit as many dioceses as possible, with three or four days spent here.
Her Synod formation session promises much, not least given how impressed she has been with Pope Leo, now the pontiff for almost 12 months.
:I think Pope Leo is such an inspired appointment. I think the strangeness of our time today with social media and the exposure that people have to parts of a papacy that they wouldn’t have had 50 years ago is just extraordinary,” she said.
“I hope Leo, in many ways, signals a story that’s been happening since Jesus Christ. And this is sometimes the tricky part of some of the emphasis on Pope Leo being, perhaps, something different.
“I think he’s a continuation of the spirit that’s always been there. And if we were to look at what happened to Second Vatican Council, and the real invitation to have the laity and much more involved in the work and life and mission of the church. Well, that was very much then carried on by John Paul 2 and then Benedict with a much more intellectual emphasis.
“But then you have Pope Francis, the first pope from the global south, really provide a pathway for the invitation to connectedness that Pope Leo has taken up quite significantly.
“It’s such a gift that his motto is in the one we are one. So if that’s anything to signal the way forward that he is taking, it’s very much encapsulated in his motto.”
The May Synod session she’ll lead came out of several conversations with Peter Bierer, assistant director, Pastoral Life and Mission at the Archdiocese of Adelaide.
She is always mindful about context she said.
“So it’s quite clear to me that in the ongoing journey of Synodality, in Adelaide, you are at a point as a community to really delve deeper into specific issues of challenge, and the fragmentation that continues within the structural and cultural realities of church, is perhaps something that the community can really look at now after several years of this way of accompaniment.”
Dialogue Week, which ran in Adelaide in late February and engaged nearly all 57,000 students in Catholic schools locally, was an interesting and valid exercise Qwayne said.
“To propose something quite different for young people is a good thing. We need to be much more willing to try new things if we are to engage young people in a new way of being Church. I think the risk that we have is that we just keep trying new things, and so eventually, we need to get to a point where we are much more strategic about the way that we engage with young people.
“But really it’s the accompaniment thereafter, the encounter that becomes the crucial part of the young people’s involvement in the life of the church, but in and of itself, the concept is good. I think we need to take good risks.”
When Adelaide will see the practical results of the Synod, can be taken by example from Parramatta said Qwayne. Local engagement is a great indicator of being on the right track.
“I think when I began to see leaders, local leaders, and their communities take ownership of the process themselves, that’s a really clear, measurements of success of the work that we do.”
Equally telling of the impact of any Synod comes via a story Qwayne told about meeting a priest from Belgian in Boston (USA) where she was studying for a MA in Theology and Ministry recently.
She told him she had been given the chance of leading the Synod in Parramatta and developing the partial plan.
“And then he said, ‘Well, as you will soon realise Qwyane, anyone is involved in leading anything related to Synodality, becomes part of the family’.”
Synod formation session on the topic of Communion and Co-Responsibility in a Fragmented World on Wednesday 6 May at 7pm. Visit www.togetherontheway.au for more details.
