The 2022 Archdiocesan Synod Assembly is expected to shape the immediate future of the local Catholic Church, but not everyone attending is Catholic.

A Lutheran and a Methodist are participating as outside observers. Both were in procession at the Synod Opening Mass June 3 and a eucharistic procession from Holy Spirit Church in St. Paul to Cretin-Derham Hall high school next door, where most Synod Assembly activities are taking place.

The observers are the Rev. Ann Svennungsen, bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Rev. Jerad Morey, director of strategic relationships for the Minnesota Council of Churches and pastor of Northfield United Methodist Church in Northfield.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who initiated the Archdiocesan Synod process in 2019, invited them.

“I thought it was significant that we would invite representatives from our separated brothers and sisters from our other Christian communities here in the Twin Cities, to ask for their prayers for this effort and also to keep them abreast of what’s going on in our archdiocese, but also to be able to hear their perspective on the questions that they’re facing in their polities, too,” he said.

Archbishop Hebda gave the example of a lunch break discussion Saturday, when people were talking about outreach to youth and young adults.

“Many of those discussions would be the same in the Lutheran community or the Methodist community as they are for us as Roman Catholics,” the archbishop said. “So, to be able to hear that is helpful in trying to figure out what are the causes for that, and also, how is it that we’re able to respond.”

In the Mass readings in the days before Pentecost, celebrated this year June 5, “we’ve been hearing in St. John’s Gospel of Jesus’ prayer that ‘we might all be one,’” Archbishop Hebda said.

“There’s always that desire that Jesus has, that all of his followers would be united,” he said. “And so even though that’s an imperfect unity at this moment, to be able to engage our brothers and sisters who are Christian in this effort — and really, Bishop Svennungsen and Reverend Morey are representatives of those communities much more broadly — is a way for us to really be mindful of the gifts that they bring to the broader Church of those who follow Christ in our archdiocese as well.”

Except for voting, the Protestant observers will participate in every way as the other 500 delegates to the Synod, said Father Joseph Bambenek, the Synod’s assistant director. They are contributing with other Synod members in discussions throughout the assembly, Father Bambeneck said.

Canon law allows for non-Catholic observers at Church synods and councils, and 200 non-Catholic observers attended the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

The Vatican’s “Instruction on Diocesan Synods” includes the following: “Should the diocesan Bishop deem it opportune, ministers or members of other Christian Churches or ecclesial communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church may be invited to attend the Synod as?observers. The presence of such observers can, amongst other things, enrich the synodal discussions by helping to give a “greater role to ecumenical concerns in normal pastoral work, thus increasing knowledge of one another, reciprocal charity, and, if possible, fraternal cooperation.”

Archbishop Hebda asked the Minneapolis-based Minnesota Council of Churches to nominate an observer and the council’s CEO, the Rev. Curtiss DeYoung, submitted Rev. Morey’s name. Rev. Morey said his new role this year in strategic relationships made it a good fit.

Rev. Morey sees his role as a Synod observer as bringing a ministry of presence, describing it as being present to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Synod Assembly, being “a present representative” of another part of the body of Christ and encouraging the discernment of the disciples “at whichever tables I am assigned.”

Rev. Morey said in his own tradition, those who conduct annual assemblies or judiciaries often invite ecumenical observers to be present or make remarks, which he said is fairly standard with the broader Christian world. Within the Minnesota Council of Churches, a board or staff member often represents the broader unity of the body of Christ in Minnesota and in the world, he said.

Acknowledging the archdiocese has been in an extended period of discernment prior to the June 3-5 Synod Assembly, Rev. Morey said he expects the weekend to be “an exciting time where some priorities are going to be set.”

Looking to the small group discussions, Rev. Morey said he looks forward to “any time you’re with a group of Christians that are trying to discern God’s will for them and their body and imagine what it means to love God above all else, and love your neighbor as yourself going forward.”

“Those are always such Spirit-filled conversations that I look forward to hearing and better understanding our brothers and sisters in Christ in the archdiocese through the ways that people talk about it and through what people understand the priorities will be,” he said.

Prior to the Synod Assembly, Rev. Morey said he thought the gathering could foster a greater sense of community and connection, and he applauds all the work that the archdiocese and all of its clergy and lay people have done to get to this point.

“Particularly as an ecumenical observer, that’s one of the things that being present at a table or different tables brings to the Synod, and why the Synod invites folks to be ecumenical observers is to even extend that sense of what the whole is,” he said. “I think those are wonderful outcomes that emerge any time the followers of Christ come together to try to figure out what the next step is for anything,” Rev. Morey said. “The more voices you have and the more traditions you have, the more you remember just how much you’re able to zoom out.”