From the 6th to 17th of January, I attended a 2 week-conference at the Center for Ignatian Spirituality of the Jesuit Vietnam Province called Pastoral Leadership In a Synodal Church. The sixteen participants were selected from the north, central and south of Vietnam, and included priests, religious sisters, and laity people. Four coaches were appointed to assist at the four table groups. The conference was directed by Fr. Julio Giulietti, an American Jesuit, working in Vietnam for many years. He has a long history of education and extensive work with the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training. He is a consultant at CIS for many years focusing on theology and psychology.
I applied for this course hoping to update myself on pastoral leadership of within the Vietnamese Church. I learned that leadership in the contemporary Catholic Church needs to integrate synodality into its activities. I was pleased and grateful to attend this two-week course. I learnt a lot from the lecture yet most of all from the “table talks” that each group did daily. During these “table talks” we listened closely so as to understood more deeply the thoughts and feeling of one another about the topics offered for consideration.
The conference started systematically with historical facts of the great counsels starting from the Council of Trent thru Vatican I and Vatican II. And the integrations with these counsels by the popes of those eras. Next, Fr. Julio introduced the Synods of Bishops on Synodality in Rome, Octobers of 2023 and 2024. Those were very informative moments for me. Then, copying the style and flow of the two Rome meetings we entered into “table talks” discussing five of the 10 topics from the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, October, 2024.
For each topic, we were asked to share our thoughts and experiences and listen carefully and respectfully to each other. These were the “table talk” topics:
- “Who Am I?”
- “The Sacrament of Marriage, Divorce and Separated Catholics, LGBTQ+ Persons and Single Parents.”
- “Clericalism in the Church”
- “Women in the Church”
- “The Final Report on Our Synodal Process” by each table group
On the last day of the first week, we were led to reflect on what we had done with the “table talk” topics; what we learnt and how we felt; and what we think the Church needs to do resulting from our discussions. The more we shared the more we recognized how important it is to live the spirit Synodality in the life of the Church. Finally, we recognized why Pope Francis and the Synodal leaders did not make any decisions about the topics under discussion. Rather, they appointed 10 teams to discuss the results of all 36 table groups in Rome and make recommendations to Pope Francis after this coming Easter about future paths of action. This process takes seriously the feedback from all table groups made up of people from all over the world. This was a big lesson for us, and the biggest lesson for all participants was repeatedly mentioned: take time to listen carefully and patiently to others and empathize on their sharing and circumstances.
In the second week, all participants worked on issues related to actual pastoral issues using the Transformation Leadership style. This helped me to be updated about some of the realities of the local Church in Vietnam, and to listen and learn from other participants’ experiences of leadership of the Church in Vietnam. On days three and four of this week, we learned diverse types of discernment: individual/spiritual discernment, group/community discernment, pastoral discernment, discernment with Jesus, with Mother Mary, and with the Church. Most of all is the discernment with the Gospel in the Holy Spirit.
On the last day, Fr. Julio shared with us was self-care of leader: Leader is not machines. We lead our team with our heart, our head and our hands! It’s important to have a healthy life in balance physically, mentally and spiritually. This will be fruitful for the leader and the team.
One of the “table talk”: From the left, Sr. My Hoa, a provincial superior of the Providence of Porticux; Mr. Bich, a leader of Focolare in VN; Sr Ai Thien, IBVM; Sr. Anh Tuyet, formator of Dominican Sisters; and Fr. Doat, a leader for Marriage and Family Committee of Hanoi Archdiocese
Author: Sr. Ai Thien, IBVM