September 16, 2025 // Diocese

‘It’s Just Us, Trying to Make This Space Closer to the Kingdom of God’

Scott Warden

Editor-In-Chief

Moderator Stacey Noem Shares How the Faithful Can Participate in the Mission of the Diocesan Synod

Shortly after returning from the second monthlong assembly of the worldwide Synod of Bishops last October, Bishop Rhoades recounted his experiences in Rome to students in the Master of Divinity program at the University of Notre Dame.

At the invitation of Stacey Noem, director of human and spiritual formation for lay students in the program, Bishop Rhoades has been speaking to the MDiv. students for the past 10 years or so. Following his visit last fall, he spoke with Noem about his desire to bring this spirit of synodality to the diocese and invited her to serve as moderator of the diocese’s first synod in 100 years.

On Sunday, September 14, at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend, Bishop Rhoades officially began Synod 2026: Spreading the Fire of God’s Love. In a wide-ranging interview with Today’s Catholic, Noem spoke about the purpose and themes of the synod, its timeline, how the faithful of the diocese can be involved, and how serving as its coordinator has affected her own faith. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Today’s Catholic: This might seem like a simple question, but what is the purpose of the synod? What does Bishop Rhoades hope will come from this process?

Noem: There can be four reasons that you call a diocesan synod – institutional or structural, correcting error, and doctrine, and then the fourth is pastoral. And so, I think our bishop takes very seriously knowing his people, and he sees this as the right structural way to get the best conversation and buy-in regarding the pastoral direction of the diocese.

It’s kind of difficult, because if you do synodality the right way, you can’t say, “This is our goal.” If you do that, you’re not really doing it right. We’re using a very theological word, telos, like telescope – like, we’re looking this way. And he has articulated that very well as what is necessary – that we have vibrant, mission-oriented communities of faith, hope, and charity. That’s the telos. What are we aiming for? What are the conversations we need to have to do that?

Today’s Catholic: What does the process of the synod look like? What’s the timeline that the faithful can expect to see?

Noem: We’ve already completed the preparatory phase. So canonically, you have to write a synodal directory. That was the work of what’s called a preparatory commission, which was the work of a number of folks from around the diocese – from catechesis, to event planning, to media, branding, theological, all those things, including getting our multicultural communities together.

We had a commission, and we all worked to write this document, which is like the playbook for the implementation of the synod. That was the work of the summer. Now, we’re at the point where we start what we’re calling the parish consultation phase.

We want everything to be grounded in prayer, and so we are asking each parish to begin with a prayerful opening of the synod that emphasizes coming together as community, praying together for the synod, and preaching that breaks open the mission of the synod. There are multiple liturgical ways each parish could do this, whether it’s evening prayer, the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, a Mass – but preaching needs to be a component.

This liturgical opening of the synod at each parish begins a discernment period where we’re providing everybody with reflection booklets on the five themes of the synod … and then each parish community will gather for conversations, and it will be up to each parish to decide what these consultations look like and over what period of time they take place. We ask that it’s no more than about five weeks, because we figure they could do targeted discernment on each theme per week.

The consultations at each parish will proceed along the lines of conversations in the Spirit that took place at the Synod of Bishops in Rome, where there will be uninterrupted rounds of sharing so that everyone has their time to give their thoughts. And along these lines, we’re going to ask people to weigh in on the individual themes. There are just three simple questions that we want people to reflect on: What does our parish and diocese excel at? What are the most pressing needs of the community – parish and diocese? And where do we need to grow? What we want people to weigh in on is the product of their prayerful reflection. We want the fruits of their thought.

So that’s the parish phase, which will take place this fall and winter.

Today’s Catholic: And then running parallel to the parish conversations will be consultations among special groups. Can you explain why those are needed and what groups will be included?

Noem: Right. Before the parishes even meet, the presbyterate will have their consultation in October. We thought it would be a good idea for all the pastors and priests to know what we’re asking them to do and do it themselves, together.

For the parish consultations, we want them to be completely done by Palm Sunday so that this doesn’t taper into the Easter season, but at some point in the midway point of winter, we’ll begin these special consultations. The intention with special consultations is that it’s people who couldn’t have otherwise accessed the parish. We’re not trying to separate or isolate anyone who might have special markers themselves. The idea is to bring that diversity to the parish consultations, whether it’s the divorced and remarried, or folks who have children with same-sex attraction, or addiction. The idea is that all those voices need to be in the parish gatherings, hearing one another, talking to one another.

Special consultation doesn’t mean special interests. The special consultations are for those who can’t or don’t have access to a parish community. Priests and deacons, and deacon wives, for example, should be with their peers. And there are others: people who are incarcerated; people who are in nursing homes; our unhoused populations; college students – and that consultation will be entirely digital.

Today’s Catholic: And then once all the consultations take place, organizers for the synod will receive reports from the parishes and special consultations?

Noem. Yes. After Easter, we will start compiling all that information so that we have materials to give to the delegates who will meet in October and November of 2026. There will be one gathering in South Bend and one in Fort Wayne.

Today’s Catholic: Who will be the delegates? How will they be chosen?

Noem: Each parish gets one delegate, chosen by Bishop Rhoades from candidates selected by the pastor. Then there are a number of other either canonically mandated delegates – whether that’s the entirety of the diocesan presbyteral council or vicars – and then a bishop can name members of religious communities, other laity, etc., to participate as delegates.

We’ll make sure delegates are trained and informed for what they’re going to do. We’ll know who the delegates are in December or January, and then there will be a time of training and formation for them. They’ll have the whole summer to prepare, and that formation is very much spiritual. We have really specific requests around prayer and sacramental life so that they feel disposed. The whole point is to be able to listen to the spirit together.

Then there is a level of catechesis. Not all these folks will be on the same theological level. We will have a kind of mini catechesis written for them so that they all have the same baseline for these five themes coming in.

Today’s Catholic: This is all leading up to the gathering of delegates in the fall of 2026?

Noem: Yes. The first gathering of the synod itself will be held on October 31 and November 1 in South Bend, so Halloween and All Saints’ Day. The second session will be in Fort Wayne on November 20-21.

Today’s Catholic: Can you talk about the themes of the synod that the delegates will be discussing?

Noem: There are five themes: evangelization, catechesis, spiritual and liturgical life, vocations, and outreach. They’re in order because we think evangelization and catechesis flow into our own spiritual and liturgical life. That’s the heart of it. That’s why the conversations about spiritual and liturgical life are in the middle. Then that flows into our response to God – vocations – and then outreach to the poor and the suffering.

With each of them, we have taglines that are very active:

• Evangelization: Sharing the truth and joy of the Gospel.

• Catechesis: Forming disciples of all ages – acknowledging that we’re constantly needing additional formation from cradle to grave.

• Spiritual and liturgical life: Living in relationship with the Blessed Trinity – so looking communally, spiritually, at liturgical life and our relationship with God.

• Vocations: Responding to God’s loving invitation. We want to make sure we talk about all vocations – single, married, ordained, consecrated.

• Outreach: Serving the poor, suffering, and vulnerable – how works of mercy flow from everything else.

Those are the themes that we want to dig into and give people space to really reflect deeply on and ask: How are our communities doing those well, or not doing them well?

It goes back to those overarching integration questions. What are the needs? How are we excelling at this? How can we do better?

Today’s Catholic: It seems that the synod is hoping to empower each parish community – not so that they all do the same things but so that they retain their own individual identity. Can you speak about that?

Noem: First and foremost, pastors know their communities. The lay faithful in the community have their own charisms and identity – their own way that they do what they do. We only want to enliven that and leave space for that to not only live but to flourish.

One of the challenges was to find the balance: How do we provide enough structure and clarity – how do we lay the groundwork – to not as much prescribe as to simply name some guardrails that we think will make this most successful. I think it was John Henry Newman who said, “What gives a river verve and movement is precisely the firmness of its banks.” We’re trying to give strong banks so that the flowing of it can all go as smoothly as possible.

Today’s Catholic: I don’t know how in tune everyday Catholics were to the worldwide Synod of Bishops in Rome – maybe here in the diocese a little more so because of Bishop Rhoades’ involvement. But still, synodality might be a bit of a foreign concept to many. What’s the pitch to get the faithful of the diocese to participate and to understand that this matters to their faith and to their parish community?

Noem: I would say, first, a local synod is not a universal synod, and this pertains to the beauty and fullness of who we are as a Church in northern/northeastern Indiana. It’s us talking to one another and listening to one another. That’s it. It’s just us.

We’re not trying to influence or move this great ship that is the entire Church in the U.S. – or globally. It’s just us, trying to make this space closer to the Kingdom of God – with one another and for one another. And the only way to do that is to participate, and participation doesn’t have to mean having strong opinions, but it does need to be prayerful. We all need to invest in prayer for the synod.

Today’s Catholic: How has working on this synod impacted your own faith?

Noem: For me, I would respond to that with there’s life of faith and spiritual life – so the lived practice of the faith and an interior spiritual life. I think all of us can tend to live in bubbles. My parish is my bubble; South Bend is my bubble; Notre Dame’s version of Catholicism is my bubble. For me, the synod just punctures all those.

I recently made a visit to the Diocesan Museum in Fort Wayne, and I was like, oh, the diocese is so big – just in the sense of there are clearly many, many more ways of being, and, also, geographically, there are many places and cities and different churches.

And as far as the spiritual life, there’s a simultaneous responsibility that one feels that you couldn’t possibly shoulder all this alone. Thank God for community, for Bishop Rhoades, for the various commissions working on this – and also for a strong prayer life.

I have a card on my desk that I wrote when this synod work got started. It comes from the Congregation of Holy Cross’s constitution, and it says, “Our mission is the Lord’s and so is the strength for it.” That just serves as a constant reminder that even when I’m stressed, the mission is the Lord’s, and so is the strength for it.

Scott Warden is editor-in-chief of Today’s Catholic.