Walking Together: LMU Joins Multi-Institution Program Empowering Catholics to Be Active Leaders

Loyola Marymount University has joined a new national initiative, the Catholic Education Network to Enact and Resource Synodality (CENTERS), a collaborative effort aimed at strengthening synodality within the U.S. Catholic Church. As one of 16 Catholic colleges and universities in the network, LMU will work over the next three years to develop programs and structures that promote the core pillars of synodality, such as active listening, meaningful dialogue, and shared decision-making, to help foster a more engaged and participatory Church across the country.

The Institute of Pastoral Theology at Loyola University Chicago is leading the initiative, supported by a $10 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, which seeks to help theological schools address the most pressing challenges in preparing pastoral leaders for Christian congregations today and in the future.

CENTERS will support the Catholic Church's global synodal journey launched by Pope Francis in 2021 by helping theological schools renew their internal operations, curricula, and partnerships to better prepare pastoral leaders for a developing Church. At LMU, Layla Karst, associate professor of liturgical theology and associate chair for graduate education, serves as principal investigator for the grant and as LMU's liaison to the national CENTERS steering board. In this role, she will collaborate with regional partners and lead a campus steering group. Marissa Papula, director of Campus Ministry, and Allie Holmquist, campus minister for international immersion, joined Karst during the grant's preplanning phase, representing LMU in a series of meetings last fall with colleagues from the 16 collaborating institutions to envision their shared work over the next five years.

"This is a fantastic opportunity for LMU to engage in multi-institutional collaboration," Karst said. "After Vatican II, Catholic universities often became centers for both the implementation of the Council's vision and critical theological reflection on the Council's ecclesiology and its reception around the world." She added, "The grant envisions the role that Catholic universities might again play in helping to deepen the church's thinking and implementation of the vision offered by Pope Francis, Pope Leo, and the recent Synod on Synodality."

LMU will be involved in every aspect of the network's work, especially in engaging the LMU community in reflection on its Catholic identity, on how to understand and articulate what it means to be a Catholic university in light of this renewed call to synodality, and on how to put this identity into practice. "As a Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount educational traditions, LMU invites scholars and students to pursue the truth through dialogue and discernment," said John Sebastian, Ph.D., vice president for mission. "The synodal movement catalyzed by Pope Francis and now promoted by Pope Leo invites us to lend our expertise to the vital work of transforming our Church, which includes our educational institutions, into a listening body attuned to the call of the Holy Spirit summoning us to new modes of Christian discipleship."

Faculty research and teaching will play a central role in this work, building on LMU theologians' existing engagement with synodality through their scholarship and teaching. Karst's research on lay preaching explores how liturgical celebrations might evolve to better reflect a synodal Church, while Professor Cecilia González-Andrieu has examined the synodal process as a pathway toward greater inclusion, and Allan Figueroa Deck, S.J., has written on the Latin American roots of synodality. Additionally, sisters from the R.S.H.M. and C.S.J. have spiritualities and charisms that resonate with this synodal vision in many ways, and this project offers the opportunity to foster more inclusive practices of "walking together" that celebrate these charisms and our shared Jesuit and Marymount educational traditions.

Students will also be actively involved through undergraduate and graduate courses focused on synodality, as well as through CENTER's newly endowed Adsumus Fellowship, which will provide further opportunities for students to study synodality and develop their own synodal pilot projects in our local community, as well as opportunities for research collaborations among faculty at the 16 partner institutions.

"LMU's participation in this network, and the opportunity to see more of our students trained in synodal thought and practice over the coming years, aligns with our commitment to promoting justice and the common good," says Kat Weaver, Ph.D., executive vice president and provost at LMU. "The inclusion and affirmation of all voices in the community is what makes it possible for that good to be truly common."

Another key goal of the project is to extend this work into the broader community by strengthening LMU's ties with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and positioning the university as a central resource for synodal practice and discernment. Local and regional funding from the CENTERS initiative will support LMU's ability to host and facilitate local synods, form church leaders (both ordained and lay), and build upon existing networks and relationships with ecclesial partners and leaders.

"At the heart of the vision of synodality articulated by Pope Francis and Pope Leo is the call to walk together - a commitment that is both embraced and embodied by CENTERS through this multi-institutional collaboration," Karst said.

CENTERS is anchored by Loyola's IPS and governed collaboratively by participating institutions: the Catholic Theological Union, Gonzaga University, Loyola Marymount University, Loyola University New Orleans, Mexican American Catholic College, Xavier University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Saint John's University, Saint Joseph's University, Santa Clara University, Southeast Pastoral Institute, University of Dayton, University of Dallas, University of San Francisco, and Villanova University.