The Symposium on the Future of Catholicism, held alongside the meetings of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR), features centrally in an article written by Catholic journalist Heidi Schlumpf for Commonweal. Schlumpf draws out ways that synodality matters for data, storytelling, and interpretations of Catholicism today. Several sessions, as well as my own ASR Presidential address, capture this.

Even so, Schlumpf’s piece ends with a provocative question: “…too often, data is ignored, and stories are not heard. …Change will happen in the Church—as sociologists have long documented—but the question remains: Will that change come from actually listening to one another? Not if it’s only sociologists and Church leaders who are excited about, or even know about, synodality.”

Probably true.