DAVENPORT, Iowa — An idea began brewing in Patrick Schmadeke’s head as he listened to an interview with Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart on the Synod of Bishops in 2023 and the process leading up to it.
“Synodality starts with coffee,” said the French nun, who serves as undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops.
“That just rang true to me. I wrote it down on my notepad,” said Schmadeke, director of evangelization for the Diocese of Davenport. “Conversations over coffee are places that listening humbly about people’s experience of church can take place.”
Meanwhile, he and members of the diocesan Evangelization Commission were trying to figure out how to reach the disaffiliated.
“They don’t just show up at church for an event, and are unlikely to show up for a formal listening session,” he said. “Most, if not all of us, have friends and family who are disaffiliated. So, how do we leverage people’s personal relationships?”
Then Schmadeke began to smell the coffee. The diocese had just compiled its 2021 diocesan Mass attendance count, which totaled 19,399, about 60% of the pre-pandemic count. If each of those 19,399 Massgoers had a conversation with three different people, that would total around 58,000 cups of coffee.
So put the coffee pot on. The “58,000 Cups of Coffee” initiative of one-on-one synod conversations has begun in the Davenport Diocese.
“This is a clever way for Catholics in the diocese to engage other people on the topic of the Catholic faith,” Davenport Bishop Thomas R. Zinkula said. “A lot of folks don’t know how to broach the subject; they don’t know what to say; they think they don’t know enough about the faith; they won’t have answers to questions.
“The synod and this initiative give them an excuse, an opportunity, to talk to others about the faith, and all they have to do is listen.”
According to the initiative, Massgoers are invited to have a synodal conversation with three different people: someone already in the pews; someone who used to be in the pews but hasn’t been since the pandemic; and someone who has never been a part of a faith community or stopped practicing long ago.
The conversation focuses on the essential question of the synod in the Davenport Diocese: Based on your personal experience, what fills your heart and what breaks your heart about the Catholic Church (e.g., in your parish and beyond your parish)?
“This is about listening to the experience of your conversation partner. It’s not about debate or listening in order to respond, it is about a deep and thorough listening in order to understand,” Schmadeke told The Catholic Messenger, Davenport’s diocesan newspaper. “We want to learn from their experience.”
The diocese has a form on its website — davenportdiocese.org — for the person who initiated the conversation to share thoughts about the experience.
Deacon candidate Ryan Burchett, who serves on the Evangelization Commission, reached out to a Catholic friend who has been away from the Church for some time.
“It led to a really interesting conversation for us,” Burchett said. “He told me where he stood and I told him where I stood. We both left the conversation in tears. It was heartfelt and meaningful.”
He admitted to feeling a bit anxious inviting his friend to talk about their faith. “I felt like I was throwing the dice a little bit.” The question, ‘What fills your heart and what breaks your heart,’ moves past the superficial stuff. It cuts to the core. My advice — don’t be afraid to go there and give it a shot.”
The “58,000 Cups of Coffee” initiative is one of two prongs of the diocesan synod process. The other prong focuses on organized listening sessions that leverage the structures of the Church, such as parishes, schools and other diocesan entities to connect to the greater community.
Responses from the listening sessions and conversations will provide the content for a 10-page summary the diocese will submit to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The USCCB will synthesize summaries from throughout the nation to send to the Vatican for the world Synod of Bishops that will convene in 2023.
The insights gathered in the diocese will also be” very helpful in our efforts to evangelize the people in our diocese,” Bishop Zinkula said.
“Hopefully, once they get a taste of this, people will be more inclined to continue to have one-on-one conversations about the Catholic faith with others,” he said. “Hopefully, it will become more natural and normal.”
Keep the coffee pot on.
Synodal process showing good progress, some challenges, Vatican says
VATICAN CITY — The Catholic Church worldwide is showing good progress and “much joy” after the opening of the synodal process, but there also have been some “uncertainties” and challenges, said the ordinary council of the Synod of Bishops.
“There is growing awareness that the synodal conversion to which all the baptized are called is a lengthy process that will prolong itself well beyond 2023,” the council said in a press release Feb. 7.
“The desire all over the world is (that) this synodal journey, which has begun at the local level,” continues “so that tangible signs of synodality might increasingly be manifest as constitutive of the Church,” it said.
The ordinary council met in person and online Jan. 26 to discuss the progress being made on the synodal process around the world and to elaborate the criteria for the “reports” to be prepared by dioceses and bishops’ conferences and submitted to the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, it said in a statement published Feb. 7 at synod.va.
“It seems that the novelty of the synodal process has given rise to much joy and dynamism,” it said.