Listening Practices in a Synodal Church: Interim Reflections from a Symposium in Rome

Listening is at the heart of Pope Francis’s synodality project. Where does scholarship addressing themes of listening, encounter, and lived experience of Catholicism sit within this project as both a subject addressed by synodality and critical agent of it? This special issue publishes the outcomes of an eighteen-month project, commissioned by members of the Synod’s methodology commission, undertaken independently under university research auspices. The project culminated in a symposium in Rome in March 2023. The project aimed to model a form of academic service to the listening phase of the Synod, rooted in a collaboration between scholars and synodal practitioners; that is, to provide a small-scale contribution of what we have outlined above as somewhat missing in the process so far. This introduction provides background context on the research question and an overview of the articles as well as reflection on the implications of the synodal process for moral theology.