“The Spirit is already alive here.”
That’s what a leading voice at the Vatican, Sister Nathalie Becquart, affirmed during a recent visit to the Diocese of San Diego.
You could experience the Spirit at work as parishioners, ministry leaders, clergy and more came joyously together over two days to reflect on the new culture flourishing in the diocese — and to celebrate.
The emerging culture is rooted in synodality, a process that calls on all faithful to a deeper life of communion, participation and mission in the Church.
“There’s a lot of excitement about the ways a more participatory Church shares decision-making and responsibility for the direction parishes and the diocese are going,” said Dr. Maureen Day, Ph.D., a local theologian, sociologist, Church scholar, and member of the Diocesan Council for a Synodal Church.
“There’s just a lot of hope and energy that this could help revitalize our Church in the San Diego area.”
The diocese has been on a synodal journey for 10 years. It began in 2016 with a consultation of parishioners about how the Church could strengthen marriage and family life, under then Bishop Robert McElroy, who implemented the resulting recommendations of the Diocesan Synod on Embracing the Joy of Love.
The journey continues under Bishop Michael Pham, who has made several organizational changes to encourage the growth of this culture across the diocese.
Dr. Day was among the 750 people or so who jammed into St. Gregory the Great Church in Scripps Ranch the night of Aug. 21 to listen to Sister Nathalie speak about re-imagining parish life in a synodal Church.
She’s uniquely positioned to do so serving as the Vatican’s Undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. This department oversees the implementation of synodal practices around the world, allowing her “to contemplate the Spirit at work in every place and time.”
She began her talk by showing the logo the Vatican developed for the three-year Synod on Synodality, which ended in 2024. It shows a group of people walking together of different colors, ages and abilities, children, men, women and a bishop.
“But the main character is the Holy Spirit,” she told the audience.
In a synodal culture, everyone is encouraged to participate in Church life, listen to one another, and discern a path forward together.
“Not this superficial listening, but this deep listening, experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit,” the sister continued.
“Do we believe that the Holy Spirit can speak through each of us, whatever our background, our age?” she asked. “In theory, yes, but in practice, most of the time, it’s not the case. Becoming a synodal parish is about becoming a Church in which we feel, we are, and we act as brothers and sisters in Christ with equal dignity.”
The day after her presentation, Sister Nathalie addressed the diocese’s third annual synod convocation, which drew nearly 400 coordinators, pastors and ministry leaders from the 44 parishes participating in the initiative “Re-Imagining Parish Life and Leadership in a Synodal Church.” Last year, a total of 36 parishes had participated, up from 16 at the inaugural gathering in 2024.
“This is what we are all about — journeying together, walking together, participating together and being on mission together as Church,” Bishop Pham told the convocation, held at St. Thomas More Parish in Oceanside. “It’s so wonderful to recognize that and see the vibrancy of our Church in our diocese.”
Before being named bishop, then Father Pham served as pastor of Good Shepherd Parish in Mira Mesa and vicar for the Office for Ethnic and Intercultural Communities. In those roles, he fostered a culture of listening and collaboration among the ministries and cultures.
He supported the consultations, or synods, the diocese held in the last decade among the faithful. They consisted of small-group dialogues at parishes, schools and ministries and an electronic survey.
On the day after he was installed as bishop of San Diego, July 17, 2025, he appointed Father Billy Zondler as Vicar for Synodality.
Father Zondler began having virtual meetings with all the “re-imagining” pastors and coordinators to promote collaboration. Then, he started meeting with them in person at quarterly deanery meetings, where they could share their experiences, build relationships and promote a synodal culture with the other pastors.
At the diocese itself, Bishop Pham has implemented a synodal approach at all levels, including directors’ meetings and committee gatherings. After a prayer, participants reflect, listen to one another in a dialogue, and discern together a path forward, guided by the Holy Spirit.
This year, Bishop Pham adopted new parish pastoral council guidelines in a synodal Church, which superseded the ones from 2006. Pastors are reviewing these guidelines with their councils for implementation.
And he established a Diocesan Council for a Synodal Church to formally assess the current state of synodal efforts and to share their experiences. The 23-member council is made up of synod leaders, lay representatives and pastors from across the region.
Vi Salazar is a member of the Council for a Synodal Church and the Women’s Advisory Committee, which was established in late 2023 to study the role of women in the diocese and make recommendations on how to increase opportunities for them to participate in the mission of the Church.
She was impressed with how Sister Nathalie had used a Scripture passage (John 21:3-6) to illustrate a synodal Church in action, what the sister called “going from ‘I’ to ‘we,’ together in mission.”
The Scripture passage describes Jesus, who has resurrected, appearing to his disciples while they are fishing. They tell him they have not caught any fish. He tells them to throw their net on the right side of their boat. When they follow his command, they catch an overwhelming number of fish, symbolizing that the disciples must follow Christ’s direction rather than their own to succeed in their mission.
“In the Gospel, fishing is an action undertaken together: Everybody has their own particular task, different but coordinated with the others,” the sister said at the Aug. 21 presentation. “This is the synodal Church in action.”
Salazar, a young adult ministry leader in the Vietnamese Catholic community, has been a member of diocesan councils since 2021, amid the COVID pandemic. These councils organized various consultations of the faithful, themselves utilizing synodal practices to discern their plans.
Salazar reflected on her own synodal journey since then.
Growing up in the Vietnamese culture, she said, “You could not really share anything about faith.
“We didn’t really get to ask like, ‘How do you feel?’ ‘What’s your hope for the Church?’ ‘Is there anything we can do to improve?’ None of that. So, when we started this process, I honestly did not know where it would go.”
Some four years later, she’s amazed at the impact the new approach is having.
At her own parish, Good Shepherd, “they are doing something based on our feedback.” She sees the same occurring at the diocesan level.
“Wow! It is so powerful that our voice is truly heard.”
As a young leader and a woman, Salazar said that she never imagined that the diocese would create a women’s leadership group.
“To be able to sit at a table with so many wonderful women from around our diocese is something that’s so inspiring to me. I have learned a lot along the way.”
Teresa Moya, the synod co-coordinator at Sacred Heart Parish in Brawley, attended the convocation. Her parish has participated in the re-imagining initiative for three years. She said she was moved by Sister Nathalie’s message about synodal spirituality.
Moya said that when people hear the word “synodality” the first thing that comes to mind is change. “And many of us like our routines, we don’t like change.”
Sister Nathalie gave the word a more profound meaning: “a path that the Church is leading us to, of walking together.”
“She told us that it was an authentic way to be in communion with God and with those around you, with your neighbors,” Moya said.
She said she has been surprised how the Holy Spirit has been working in her parish, which is made up of three church communities that historically have resisted working together.
“I have been surprised how the Holy Spirit has been opening people’s hearts, inspiring them to feel an openness and confidence to believe that God is moving us, even though we don’t have a complete vision yet of where we’re going.”
Her parish began the synodal process under Father Bernardo Lara. As of July 1, he’s been assigned to serve as pastor of Our Lady of Angels Parish in San Diego. He has decided that his new parish should participate in the synodal initiative, as well.
“First of all, to foster a culture of listening,” he said.
Then he spoke about the need to address entrenched practices that have strayed from the Church’s theology and spirituality.
A group faithful from his new parish attended the convocation. He’s confident the experience with the synodal process “also will be transformative.”
From the Southern Cross
People say it’s the Holy Spirit at work but it’s not. If you asked any one of them to explain specifically how they know it’s the Holy Spirit they would grope for words and say, “Um, I don’t really know, actually.” They just say it because it sounds like what they should say or what is expected. Many, many Catholics are stupefyingly ignorant and even stupid about the faith.
Attributing something to the Holy Spirit doesn’t automatically justify it or baptize it as commendable or even as the work of God. You have to explain it instead of relying on those lazy words.
The Quakers sit in silence at their Sunday services. And if “the Spirit moves you,” then you get up and say something. The Pentecostals get pretty wild, when the Holy Spirit touches them in church, with very intense religious experiences.Then there are some religious groups that have “prophets,” with “messages from God,” healers for the sick, and all sorts of “gifts of the Spirit.” So where is the silly Catholic Church headed, with the Holy Spirit supposedly leading the way, with “listening,” at the Synod on Synodality?
This quote near the end shows how delusional people are in this wishful thinking about naming the Holy Spirit:
“I have been surprised how the Holy Spirit has been opening people’s hearts, inspiring them to feel an openness and confidence to believe that God is moving us, even though we don’t have a complete vision yet of where we’re going.”
That’s supposed to be profound or informative?
These people don’t know what they are talking about. They’re using word salads like Kamala Harris and sprinkling Holy Spirit in there for seasoning.
There’s nothing wrong with word salads. Your Kam would’ve made a great president. I studied ambiguity in the seminary. You know, I’m a part-time Presbyterian seminarian and I can quote the Bible in and out of context any time. California is leading the way. Hopefully, us backwards Texans will catch up. Vote for me. I’m still with my girlfriend of four years and don’t know how many genders there are, but I may figure some of those things out after I’m elected a US Senator.
What does Sister mean by, “The Spirit is already alive here?” Is she referring to the Holy Spirit? (I think so.)
The Holy Spirit is alive everywhere and always has been.
As we pray in the Eastern Catholic Church, “Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, everywhere present and filling all things, Treasury of Blessings and Giver of Life, come, dwell within us, cleanse us of all stain and save our souls, O gracious One.” And, as we pray to the Holy Spirit in the ancient thrice-Holy hymn, “Holy and Immortal, have mercy on us.”
There are various spirits. I left you Rules for the discernment of spirits and recommend all learn them.
As the Holy Spirit inspired St. John the Apostle, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)
Some, even some in the Company of Jesus (the Jesuits, as we were originally called), have been influenced by lying spirits.
One of the actions of the Holy Spirit is to warn the Church and help it avert disaster and ‘ return by another way’. Very many ‘listeners’ at Synodal presentations report a feeling of uneasiness and foreboding and at the recurring opinion-taking that the US bishops have employed since the Council to do fundraising for their dioceses ( needed to build office space and pay salaries for the myriad ‘ministries’ that continued to expand uncontrollaby). Internet news stories show Becquart has a non-stop jet fuel carbon footprint worldwide , impossible to offset by San Diego solar projects and tree planting
It’s surprising the adults waste their time with this prattle.
They spend their time in order to advance their personal agenda of sexual license, immigration, socialism, women power, etc. Now they have a forum in which to do so. When the first synod was done, the two reps I sent from Immaculate Conception in Old Town offered their report to one of the moderators, who told them it was too late because the information had already been tallied. That means the conclusions were written before the “listening” and “sharing” began. The reps felt manipulated and said they never would go back.
Sister Becquart indicated that the ordination of women is still an open question that needs to be raised again once new “institutional structures’have been put in place through synodal processes. She defines ‘clericalism’ as the belief that clerics are needed for anything at all. Baptism has it all! Will this be the end of the Eucharist?
Pope St. John Paul II declared Ex Cathedra, that the Church has NO AUTHORITY to ordain women as priests. What part of “NO” don’t these people not understand. If I see a “sister” or “nun” dressed like this, or any other way, at a mass advocating for women priests, I will be out the door pronto. Women priestesses are apostates.
Today, Oct. 14, is Charlie Kirk’s birthday. He was born on Oct. 14, 1993. He would have been age 33, if he were alive, today. Many prayers for Charlie Kirk’s poor, suffering widow, Erika, and for his two, dear little children! They will grow up never knowing their beloved father. Very sad.
On Tuesday, Oct. 13, the Napa Institute held a big Eucharistic Procession, starting from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, going through Midtown Manhattan. Jesuit Fr. James Martin joined the procession, and at one point, he was invited to carry the holy Monstrance. He posted on “X” about it. Many are praying for Martin’s conversion.
I’m convinced church bureaucrats don’t know what they’re talking about nor what they’re doing. They do silly “religious” things to justify their salaries and their titles and their offices. None of it is meaningful.
Sister Lucia, one of the 1917 Fatima visionaries, wrote a long letter in 1983 to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, whom Pope St. John Paul II commissioned to establish the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. The Cardinal had requested her prayers for the new Institute. Sister Lucia wrote that Our Lady had told her, “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family.” She also told Sister Lucia that she had “already crushed Satan’s head” and “in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
Perhaps the Holy Spirit will lead her to a good hairdresser.
I couldn’t agree MORE !!!
How do you know it is a her?