Free MOOC (online course) on the theology and practice of Synodality

Catholics across the globe are invited to take part in a Massive Open Online Course or MOOC on the topic of “Common Discernment and Decision Making in the Church.”

The initiative comes as part of the Synod on synodality and is organized by Boston College's School of Theology. The presenters are international renowned and often part of the Vatican's Synod on Synodality Preparation and Advisory team. The online course is free and open to anyone interested. It begins in July as a three-week course which hopes to offer formation in “theology and practice of synodality” to over 100,000 people. You can be one of those 100 000!

The Synod on Synodality represents a new and exciting phase in the life of the Church. This phase deepens the ecclesiology of the People of God developed at the Second Vatican Council and invites us to generate processes of conversion and reform of relationships, communicative dynamics and structures in the Church. This will require a process of common discernment and formation in the short, medium and long term to stimulate the awareness of a Church lived and understood in a synodal key. Therefore, with this course we offer some fundamental dimensions for building a synodal Church. The learning will take place over three weeks, in which we will offer conferences, in-depth talks and testimonies of ecclesial experiences that already exist in the different continents.

Course Format

Weekly Schedule:

Introductory Lectures to the program

Week 1 offers some criteria that will help to assess and deepen the theology and practice of communal discernment and the building of ecclesial consensus.

Week 2 focuses on the elaboration and decision making in the Church. One of the great challenges for a new institutional model.

Week 3 and final weeks offers reflections on leadership and governance in the Church, and how many of the changes in the Church in the third millennium depend on this.

All themes are grounded in the Christian tradition deepened in the light of the Second Vatican Council and read from our present ecclesial contexts.

This program is asynchronous and participants can complete all elements of the course in their own time. Each week requires a time commitment of approximately three hours. Total time commitment is 12 Hours (Including Introductory Videos) .