Your Church Wants to Hear from You

In October 2021, the Catholic Church officially began the largest consultative process in human history. The entire people of God, some 1.34 billion Catholics worldwide, were asked to participate in a process of listening and engagement together over the course of two years. Why embark on this incredibly novel, time-consuming, and expensive task? Because your church wants to hear from you.

This booklet explains and explores why the leaders of the Catholic Church have discerned that the synodal path is what “God expects of the church of the third millennium.” This Synod on Synodality is not just another meeting. It is the beginning of a conversion process that is essential to the life of the church and its mission. And the Church needs you to carry it out.

Michael J. Sanem is a managing editor at Liturgical Press in Collegeville, Minnesota. He is a former Bernardin Scholar at Catholic Theological Union, and most recently served as director of mission and ministry at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Kansas City, as well as executive director of the Ignatian Spirituality Center in Kansas City. He is the author of Becoming the Good News: A New Approach to Parish Evangelization and Your Church Wants to Hear from You: What Is the Synod on Synodality? He is also a regular contributor to Give Us This Day.