Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe said the solution to overcoming polarization in the church and in wider society is for people on all sides to learn to talk to and listen to one another with respect, something that was demonstrated in the 2023 and 2024 sessions of the synod on synodality.

Cardinal Radcliffe, former master of the Dominican order, preached retreats before both of the sessions of the synod at the Vatican, and was made a cardinal in December 2024. He spoke on “The Synod: Healing for a Polarized World” at Old St. Patrick’s Church on Jan. 23.

People on both the left and right ends of the spectrum in the Catholic Church might feel like the synod was a failure, he said, because they did not get what they wanted out of it, with those on the right believing it was raising issues unnecessarily and encouraging conflict, and those on the left wanting significant changes, especially in the area of allowing women to be ordained deacons.

Many media outlets encouraged the view of the synod as a clash between warring viewpoints, he said, focusing on the “chasm at the heart of the church” rather than on attempts to build bridges of relationship across that chasm.

But what did happen — people from different generations, cultures and worldviews listening to and learning from one another — marks a significant beginning to a more synodal way of being church.

“We should try to understand and profess the belief that, first of all, a profound transformation of the church is needed, a liberation from polarization,” Cardinal Radcliffe said, adding that only then can the church develop and grow.

He compared it to the demolition of an old building near where he lives in Oxford, England. It was an ugly building, he said, but tearing it down has been loud and disruptive.

“The noise is tremendous,” Cardinal Radcliffe said. “Siestas have become impossible. … 
Now there’s almost nothing left, and I think that this is just a little bit like where we are as a church. To renew the church demands this conversion of mind and heart. For it to become new, we have to discover again and again how being alive means that we flourish in mutuality in the whole world. I think the message of the synod is where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.”

It took time, Cardinal Radcliffe said, for the more than 360 members of the synod — which for the first time included women and laymen as voting members — to learn how to interact with mutual respect.

Previous synods, he said, could be described as concentric rings of hats, with the pope in a white hat in the middle, surrounded by a group of cardinals in “rather fine” red hats, surrounded by a larger group of bishops in purple hats. The “unhatted” — non-bishops — were kept to the margins.

In both October sessions of the synod on synodality, groups of 10 or 11 members of all stations sat at round tables, with rules requiring all participants to listen to each of the others, and with periods of silence for prayer and reflection, Cardinal Radcliffe said.

“And the foundation of this transformational way of life, as I’m sure you heard a thousand times, is in listening,” he said. “In a world torn incredibly by war and violence, we have to recover the art, find again the art of listening to the words of those with whom we disagree.”

For Cardinal Radcliffe, the most significant difference seemed to be between Western cultures that appear to value individualism above all (“We have the iPad and the iPhone and I-everything,” he said) and Eastern cultures that value the group perhaps to the point of discounting the individual. There needs to be a balance, he said.

Such mutuality requires transparency and accountability, as well as an acknowledgment that the people of God have received the Holy Spirit, Cardinal Radcliffe said.

For that to happen, relationships between distinct groups of people, whether men and women or the clergy and the laity, must function on a principal of reciprocity, he said. “Reciprocity” denotes a dynamic relationship that allows for change and meets the needs of both parties, as opposed to “complementarity,” which Cardinal Radcliffe said describes a static relationship in which the parties are stuck in their roles.

Reciprocity, he said, is the mark of true friendship.

In a short question-and-answer session following his talk, Cardinal Radcliffe was asked about how his life as a Dominican had prepared him for the synod and about how young people can learn to work with and relate to people who are different from them.

The answer to both, he said, is friendship. His religious community always emphasized friendship, he said, and young people should follow the same path.

Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Marci Hermesdorf said his comments on friendship resonated with her.

“Love is the mission,” she said. “And friendship is holy, respectful mutual love.”

Sue Cooney Trnka said she was impressed with his humility, and with his openness to receive others in their full humanity.

“He represents the humanness, the understanding, the equality of people, all the things that are good,” Cooney Trnka said.