When participants later speak of their synod experiences invariably they will say the most fruitful moments happened at the coffee bars or in the corridors outside the synod hall. Makes you wonder. What synods aim to do is carefully control the flow of information and thought. This extends to the way the media is treated. Nothing can be left to chance.
Nothing is to get out of hand.
This includes the media, most of who have long given up on covering episcopal gatherings. At the end of the synod, the interventions and caucuses produce papers and later recommendations, almost always distilled to pabulum-like ideas, which are presented to the pope. A year or so later, he responds, but by then nearly all the energy that went into the process has ended and most people have forgotten the event all together. It leads one to think that synods are what happen in lieu of open and honest collaborative deliberation. Changing the form and substance of church synods must be on the agenda of those church leaders determined to bring Catholicism to greater life in the next century.