What do Catholics think about synodality?

What do rank and file Catholics—the very Catholics synodality is meant to tap into—think about the Church’s synodality efforts?

The Church herself tried to gauge this in an aborted X (formerly Twitter) poll. Of course, X polls can be fun, but they are not nearly representative enough to tell us much about what the average Catholic thinks. And on top of that, the wording of the question was, to put it nicely, not ideal for something resembling a scientific poll. The Vatican asked:

“Do you believe that synodality as a path of conversion and reform can enhance the mission and participation of all the baptized?”

This is a prime case of what survey statisticians call a “double-barreled question,” where the question has so many parts it is hard to know what exactly the responses are measuring. When designing a question for a survey, professionals try to make the question as direct, simple, and comprehensible as possible. The question, as worded by the Vatican, was unclear and destined to create confusion.

The poll produced lopsided results. 88% responded “no,” and the post was deleted within a couple of days. Clearly the Vatican did not get the response they expected or desired, but rather than address the negative reaction directly, they simply removed any trace of the poll. Not a good look for a Vatican that speaks in terms of engaging the laity and welcoming dialogue. And it feeds into the general suspicion surrounding the Synod that we hear: the synod is a Trojan Horse for predetermined outcomes. Why else delete a poll unless the results do not help the objective?

Since the Vatican is so committed to the synodal process, it would make sense for those in charge of it to use scientific methods in engaging the faithful and to be fully transparent with those results. Otherwise, the whole effort creates more doubt among the faithful with respect to the goals of synodality and the Synod on Synodality. We’ve already seen this play out, for instance, when the gathering and summarizing of national and regional synodal reports was riddled with issues (see the excellent procedural critique by social scientist Mark Regnerus). The credibility of the synodal process, if it is to be a sounding board for a cross-section of Catholics, relies on sound methodology and transparent reporting, otherwise the faithful are justified in raising questions about its authenticity.

With all of this in mind, Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal did our own survey, using clearer questions and a more representative survey, to try to gauge rank-and-file attitudes towards synodality, which seems to have been the objective of the Vatican poll noted above. Of course, we do not have nearly the same reach and resources the Vatican does, but still our findings are illuminating.

We surveyed a sample of 537 U.S. Catholics using the Momentive/SurveyMonkey panel survey, stratified by age and gender to make them “look” like American Catholics at large. (Similar surveys in other countries would be interesting and perhaps worth the investment as they can be done at modest cost.) We asked,

“In your own words, describe what authentic synodality means in a Catholic context. If you don’t know, type ‘I don’t know.’”

It immediately became apparent that most rank-and-file Catholics have little understanding of synodality. Of the 537 respondents, only 39 said they did know and gave a response that could (very generously) be described as having anything to do with synodality. So 7%, at best, knew what synodality is. When we asked about the Catholic Church’s current 3-year efforts, only 18 could articulate something coherent about it, so only 3% knew anything about a process on which the Church has likely spent millions of dollars, and even more in time and other resources. For an initiative designed to tap into the rank-and-file of Catholicism, vanishingly few Catholics know anything about it, much less the details.

Ultimately this is unsurprising, as only about half of Catholics could correctly identify the Church’s teaching on the Real Presence when presented with multiple choice options. So for a free response for something as esoteric as synodality, we should expect the number to be low. But perhaps it is still surprising that it is so low after all the effort and expense the Holy See and dioceses all around the world have put into the exercise.

Of course, with respect to the Vatican informal poll, a X poll is going to tap into Very Online Catholics who are probably more involved in the latest controversies. But again, this does not tell us much about the rank-and-file Catholics who are not up on the latest news from the Vatican and are just going about their lives and engaging the Church through their local parish. One would think they would be a key target audience for the Synod on Synodality, but they would have to be reached in ways other than a X poll.

We also asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with the statement,

“I think that the Catholic Church’s current three-year efforts around the Synod on Synodality are a good use of the Church’s time and money.”

For what it’s worth, of the 18 respondents of our much more representative survey who knew something about the Vatican’s current efforts, 3 strongly agreed, 3 agreed, 7 neither agreed nor disagreed, 1 did not know, 2 disagreed, and 2 strongly disagreed. With this small sample the most we can say is that respondents are about as warm towards the Vatican’s initiative as they are cool towards it, with only 1% of all respondents answering favorably.

We also hoped to get a sense of what Catholics specifically liked or disliked about the Church’s synodal efforts, so we asked,

“Describe any negative things you have observed in the Catholic Church’s current three-year efforts around the Synod on Synodality. If you don’t know, type ‘I don’t know,’”

as well as a similarly worded question, but for positive things. Once again, we received some useful information on perspectives, although again a very small number compared to the pool of respondents. On the positive side we were told:

• It has given voice to all who wish to be heard on various topics.

• It has increased engagement among diverse groups.

• It has fostered greater inclusivity and an ability to have tough conversations about the future of the Church.

• The Church is sounding out the opinions of the laity.

• The Synod on Synodality has been praised for encouraging open dialogue and bringing more people into discussions about the future of the Church.

On the negative side, answers included:

• There is a lack of inclusion for dissenting views.

• In Germany, certain groups are pushing for a revision of the church’s teachings on basic morality.

• Some people have criticized the current Synod on Synodality for being too slow and not involving enough voices from all parts of the Church.

• Totally negative… the purpose is to shove homosexuality and the female priesthood down the throats of the few remaining faithful.

• The process is slow and there is potential conflict among different viewpoints.

In this brief exercise we showed a small sample of what a more robust, representative process for querying the laity on Church governance might look like using well-honed questions and a representative sample of laity. If the Vatican seriously wants to poll the faithful (or the not so faithful), then it is incumbent upon them to use more scientific methods that are transparent so Catholics can understand and trust the results. With the use of technology this is not that difficult to do in many countries.

If there is going to be a synodal process, what we need now is a transparent and scientific approach to surveying the faithful for the purposes of synodality. Polls obviously do not make doctrine—nor should they—but if synodality is about listening to the people then the method of listening must be properly representative and easily understood. Thankfully, this can be done relatively easily through the use of technology in many parts of the world.

All that being said, the whole synodal exercise as performed by the Vatican in recent years seems to be a self-referential exercise that is of little interest to the rank-and-file Catholic. Perhaps this is not a bad thing. Cardinal Ratzinger had this observation about the synodal process way back in 1970:

“There are complaints that the majority of believers generally show little interest in dealing with the Synod. I have to admit that this reluctance seems to me to be more of a sign of health. From a Christian point of view, i.e. for what is actually meant by the New Testament, little is gained by people passionately grappling with synodal problems – just as little does anyone become a sportsman as a result of his being deeply involved in the structure of the Olympic Committee.”1

“The fact that people are gradually becoming indifferent to the busyness of the ecclesiastical apparatus, making people talk about themselves and to bring themselves to mind, is not only understandable, but also correct from an objective ecclesiastical point of view. They don’t always want to know how bishops, priests and full-time Catholics can balance their offices, but rather what God wants from them in life and in death and what He doesn’t want.”2

Maybe what we need now is a less self-referential Church as modeled by the Synod on Synodality and a Church that is interested in what God wants and does not want from each one of us. That is, how do we grow in holiness? It is hard to imagine he wants more meetings about meetings. But it is easy to imagine he wants more of what we witnessed at the recent Eucharistic Congress: a Church in worship around the one, true God. That seems like a worthwhile exercise.

(Editor’s note: This essay was published originally on the “What We Need Now” site and is republished here with kind permission.)

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