For two years, the Center for Ignatian Spirituality (CIS) of the Vietnamese Province has received requests from bishops and religious superiors for a programme on pastoral leadership. I asked my friend and colleague, Jesuit Fr Julio Giulietti, what he thought of this, and he responded that pastoral leadership in the contemporary Church cannot be valid without taking seriously the importance of synodality. This led Fr Julio to develop “Pastoral Leadership in a Synodal Church,” the first programme of its kind in Vietnam.
Sixteen participants were selected for the pilot programme, which ran from 6 to 17 January. It was a balanced group comprising eight males and eight females, including four diocesan priests from northern Vietnam dioceses, male and female religious, and four laypersons from across the country.
In the first week, facilitators guided group discussions on five “table talk” topics drawn from the 10 major areas addressed during the 2023 and 2024 Synods of Bishops on Synodality in Rome. Throughout these discussions, we maintained the same style of respectful listening to one another’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Initially, the process made some of the participants feel uncertain, asking: “We have all spoken, so what do we do now?” and “How do we lead others about these ideas?”
But by the third day, even those who were skeptical of the synodal process of “deep listening” realised that listening closely to the thoughts, feelings, and experience of others—and being genuinely heard in return—changed their understanding of what it means to be a People of God listening in the presence of the Holy Spirit. The participants learnt that leadership can only be honest after everyone in the conversation has spoken and been respectfully heard.
The second week focused on applying synodality to transformational leadership and the process of discernment. Fr Julio directed the first week and the leadership portion of the second week, while Fr Nguyen Trung Kien SJ directed the session on pastoral discernment.
After returning to their communities, participants shared their experiences with their bishops and religious superiors. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, generating additional requests from bishops and religious superiors for future sessions. We plan to offer this programme twice more this year. While January marked the first time such training was offered in Vietnam, it certainly won’t be the last.
