A delegate to the Oct. 4-29 Synod of Bishops, Cynthia Bailey Manns, said she invites prayers as she prepares to leave for Rome.
“Prayers for good health,” said Bailey Manns, adult learning director at St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis. “Prayers for patience, prayers for clarity, compassionate empathy, to make sure I’m open.”
Bailey Manns, 65, is one of 10 non-bishop voting delegates chosen by Pope Francis to represent the North American region at the first general assembly of the Vatican synod. She is also one of four laypeople from the United States appointed by Pope Francis. A second synod assembly will be held in October 2024.
Asked if the appointment weighs heavily on her, Bailey Manns said yes and no. “It’s not heavy in terms of it’s too much responsibility,” she said. “It is intense, and the importance of it. I’ve always been a person who is very comfortable in being one of the few at the very beginning of anything. And so that space is not the piece that challenges me. It’s wanting to make sure that I’m doing this well and that I’m paying attention to God in all of this.”
Bailey Manns will be among more than 450 participants — 363 of whom are voting delegates — with leaders from the Vatican curia and episcopal conferences. More than a quarter of synod members are non-bishops, including laypeople, who for the first time will have a vote during synod deliberations.
She said the fact Pope Francis has included laypeople among those who can vote reflects who he is, “particularly as a Jesuit, and that he wants to not only say what he believes, but he wants action behind it. And we have to be a Church that listens to everybody. We have to be a Church that engages with others, particularly those who are different from us. We can’t say everyone’s made in the likeness and image of God and then put a ‘but’ behind it. And I think this is a way of him saying there is no ‘but’ here.”
The synod is expected to address controversial topics such as leadership roles for women and ministry to Catholics who identify as LGBTQ+. Bailey Manns said these have been questions that she has faced in parish ministry, and she feels a responsibility at the synod to represent everyone she serves.
“How do I make sure that I am representing not only our congregation, but the different aspects of who we are as a congregation, as a Church, our Catholics of color, our LGBTQ community, our separated and divorced?” she asked. “All the people that I engage with in our parish, and that I have their stories and their dreams and hopes and take those with me and represent them well, and that I continue to steep myself in my own spiritual preparation for this.”
PRAYER SERVICE
An “Eve of the Synod” prayer service will be held from 7-8 p.m. Oct. 3 at St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis and it will be livestreamed. The service is co-sponsored by the parish and Discerning Deacons, a national group that holds a monthly prayer service and in recent months has been praying for the Vatican synod. A link for registration to the livestream can be found HERE. Discerning Deacons engages Catholics in active discernment about women and the diaconate.
Bailey Manns said she has heard criticism and support for her appointment to the synod. It hasn’t surprised her, she said.
“It is expected for so many reasons,” she said. “I’m a woman, I’m an African American woman. And this is a new space that we have not been in before (as a Church),” she said. “Not everyone is going to be in alignment with what I think and believe, and I accept that.”
Focused and centered prayer runs through the preparatory documents for the synod, and it will be important all the way through, Bailey Manns said.
“They have a wonderful phrase in there, that the protagonist of this is the Holy Spirit,” she said. “And so, how do we all try to embody that in a way that’s compassionate and deliberative and with empathy, and also with a great deal of self-awareness in terms of where our issues are, things that are important to us? And so that is the grounding of it.”
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