Pope Francis formally opened his audacious two-year synodal process on Sunday 10 October. Many Catholics are still hesitating over whether to take up his invitation, to walk together, on what will be a challenging journey

I’ve heard several people say that “a synod on synodality”, a synod that aims to help the Church “be more synodal”, is a bit hard to get your head around. As one friend said, at least in the general synods in Rome, “you’ve had something to hang your hat on, be it the family, or youth, or the Amazon”. Is the two-year synodal process “a colossal waste of time”, as I heard one Catholic commentator say on the radio last Sunday, a few hours before it was officially launched by Pope Francis in Rome?

From the outside, even for Catholics, synodality can be difficult to understand, and harder to warm to. During a meeting of the Liverpool archdiocesan synod, which concluded earlier this year, Brian, a synod member from the Isle of Man, spoke about how he had started the process as a cynic. It was “another initiative”, “a PR exercise” rather than “something real and meaningful”. But he had become an enthusiastic convert to the synodal process.