by Tania Chomiak-Salvi, President and Jennifer Dorsey, Vice President On behalf of the Parish Pastoral Council
In 2023, the Vatican will hold the Synod on Synodality. In preparation, dioceses around the world are gathering input and feedback to send forward and share as a part of crucial preparation. Here in the Archdiocese of Washington, each parish was asked to submit feedback from its own listening session. The Holy Trinity Parish Pastoral Council took on the effort of coordinating our own listening process at Trinity. Unsurprisingly, several listening sessions were required as many of our parishioners wanted to share their voices. After eight formal listening sessions, including one focused on the LGBTQIA+ population and another for the young adult community, a survey, and additional feedback received from various sources, more than 300 individual voices were heard. It was a prayerful, uplifting, and thought provoking process that led to insightful feedback. Throughout this document you will find summaries of the survey responses categorized into five themes. They are:
1. Spirituality is strong at Holy Trinity 2. The church and fellow Catholics should give vocal support for LGBTQIA+ Catholics 3. Women should have a greater role in the Church 4. Young Catholics are unlikely to return to the Church until it makes fundamental changes 5. The Church is the people, not just the hierarchy
You will also find a section dedicated to our formal response to the Archdiocese, which was a shorter summation of the full report due to the format required.
Finally, there is a section on feedback for the parish that arose during the listening sessions. This feedback has been brought to the Parish Council and is being reviewed and passed to the appropriate committee or staff member for potential action. Updates will continue in the coming months to ensure everyone is aware of how we are moving forward with your feedback.
Thank you to everyone who made these sessions possible. Thank you to the Parish Council for all their work and dedication in making these sessions possible. Thank you to Fr. Kevin for his support and encouragement so that all feedback could be taken seriously. Thank you to the Restorative Justice leaders for running our listening sessions to ensure everyone could be heard. And, of course, thank you to each person who participated, forwarded the survey, spread the word, and shared their thoughts. This process was inspiring and encouraging because of the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response we received.