by Angela Hanley

The Bristol Synod took place from 5th-12th September this year. Thanks to competence in technology we have come to embrace because of Covid-19, we had the privilege and benefit of listening to speakers from around the world in live discussion. Attending the Synod as a disillusioned and disenfranchised Catholic, I felt the small stirrings of hope – the first in many years – for our Church. However, I’ve seen and heard too much about the crushing of hope time and again within the Church not to lose the run of myself in wild expectation. I don’t have hope the hierarchy will listen and act. Rather it is the hope that Newman’s sleeping giant is awakening.

Root and Branch ‘started with women but it doesn’t end there’. The Synod had its genesis in January 2020 when a small group of women, concerned about the steady disintegration of our Church, took up the challenge of journalist Joanna Moorehead who, in The Tablet said the Church needed a synod that starts with women rather than tagging us on at the end. Just add women and stir, as it were.