Earlier this month, Maria Sabov received an unexpected FaceTime call from her 9-year-old son Pavlo while she was in an important meeting. He needed some help with his homework.

The 37-year-old mother of three quickly answered her son’s questions about their native Ukrainian language — and then got back to work as a voting member at the ongoing Synod on Synodality in Rome.

“My fellow delegates in Paul VI Hall joked that parental responsibilities don’t have any breaks — not even for a synod,” Sabov shared with the Register.

It’s a reality that Sabov isn’t experiencing alone.

In a well-noted novelty for a Synod of Bishops, 26% of the 368 voting members at the Synod on Synodality are non-bishops. Included among these 96 delegates are several parents, some of them with young children back home.

Thus, while the uniquely co-ed gathering’s participants are often referred to as Synod Fathers and Mothers, it’s also true that several of them are synod moms and dads.

The new dynamic has led to any number of colorful anecdotes, from synod parents finding each other and swapping stories at the opening retreat, to a mother introducing herself to the cardinals and bishops at her small group table by passing around a smart phone with photos of her kids.

The inclusion of parents and other non-bishops as voting members has also led some to ask whether the gathering should rightly be called a Synod of Bishops—and to question the weight of its forthcoming final document.

Whatever the canonical status of the current assembly, the moms and dads who accepted Pope Francis’s invitation to come to the synod are bringing a parental perspective to the proceedings, even while they parent from afar.

Parenting at the Synod

For some of these parents, continuing to be involved in family life while in Rome involves juggling not just busy schedules, but also significant time-zone differences.

Kelly Paget, one of 10 non-bishop delegates from Oceania, would know. Her home of Broken Bay, Australia, just north of Sydney, is a full nine hours ahead of Vatican City.

But Paget, 41, is grateful that the synod’s morning coffee breaks (she calls them “tea breaks”) line up with when her three boys — ages 13, 10 and 6 — are going to bed back home, allowing her to take part in their bedtime routine.

“I’m able to FaceTime my family and say evening prayers with my husband and boys, and say good night to them as my husband tucks them into bed,” said Paget, chancellor of the Diocese of Broken Bay.

Similarly, José Manuel De Urquidi takes advantage of overlapping openings in his and his family’s schedules to speak with his three kids, ages 10, 7 and 4, back home in Dallas. He FaceTimes with them on their way to school (during the synod’s lunch break), and then on their drive back home (right before he’s getting ready for bed in Rome).

De Urquidi, a native of Mexico who is serving as one of Latin America’s non-bishop delegates, talks with his kids about their “highs, lows and buffaloes” and what they’re learning in school. Because he can’t join in for night prayer with his family, he uses the afternoon call to ask them what they are grateful to God for, and how they helped someone at school that day.

The 40-year-old also talks to his wife when he leaves the synod hall in Rome each evening at 7:40 p.m. They talk about family logistics and make decisions together, and he also listens and provides support for whatever challenges she might be facing back at home.

“This is important —very important,” stressed De Urquidi, the founder and CEO of the Juan Diego Network, a Latino Catholic podcast network. 

Baseball games, choir concerts and other milestones in kids’ lives don’t get put on pause while synod parents are in Rome, something De Urquidi noted in a recent social media post. 

“As a family man, it has been challenging,” he wrote. “No reason to deny it. On the contrary.”

So instead, delegates try to participate in their children’s lives from afar as best they can.

Deacon Geert De Cubber, 50, wasn’t home in Belgium when the second of his three boys (22, 21 and 19) celebrated a birthday earlier this month, but still made a point to commemorate the occasion.

“We had a nice long chat on the phone, talking about normal dad-and-son stuff,” said the Diocese of Ghent deacon, a member of the European delegation to the synod.

Discerning to Come

Parents at the synod acknowledge the difficulties of being away from home for a month — but they knew what they were getting into when they agreed to come.

The four who spoke with the Register shared that serious discernment went into whether coming to Rome for the synod, which began with a session last October, made sense for them and their families.

Deacon De Cubber said that before deciding to come, he had a “family synod” with his wife and three boys. They all urged him to go, but if even one of them hadn’t, he said, “I would not be in Rome right now.”

“It is as simple as that: My first vocation is my marriage and my family. Every other commitment originates from that.”

For Sabov, who is from Berehove in western Ukraine, the decision was made even more complex by the war with Russia that “has become a part of our lives.” As the wife of a Greek Catholic priest, Fr. Viktor, she also plays a pivotal role in her parish community.

But Sabov talked with her husband and her kids, ages 15, 13 and 9, and they all agreed that the synod was an important opportunity for her to represent not only Ukraine, but also the Mukachevo Greek Catholic eparchy she is a part of.

“It is a responsibility, and an important mission and honor for me,” she told the Register.

For Paget from Australia, it was her husband, Chris, who helped her to be open to the possibility of participating in the synod in the first place, encouraging her to “say Yes, and if you’re meant to be there, we’ll make it work.”

When she did find out that Pope Francis had selected her to participate, her reaction was so filled with emotion that her “husband thought someone had passed away.”

Paget said that she misses her kids, and her husband, intensely, but that her parents and in-laws chipping in with family care back home has made things easier.

“I’m very blessed that my children are not left wanting for love or attention,” she said.

Parental Advisory

Even though it’s difficult being away from their kids, parents at the synod believe they have something distinct to contribute and are grateful to be included.

Paget has made a point to share how her son’s “unique giftedness that comes from living with autism can be particularly challenging in the church environment.”

“I’ve tried to be as vulnerable as possible to share my story in the hope that it might assist many others who yearn to feel welcome in their parish communities,” she told the Register.

Deacon De Cubber noted that being a parent involves “knowing what it’s like to discern together,” a central consideration in the synod’s discussion of greater listening in Church governance.

“A family — the smallest possible community of faith — is a small synod, you could say,” the Belgian deacon said. “That experience of family discernment can be brought to the synod by all parents.”

Sabov has been honored to share her unique perspective as an Eastern Catholic, and to emphasize “the importance of supporting family values in the community of the Church.”

Indeed, one of the most applauded moments of this year’s synod session occurred when a mother called for more focus on improving Christian initiation for young children.

Renee Köhler Ryan, an Australian philosopher, synod delegate and mother of five, told the Register at last year’s session that parental participation provides the bishops with helpful reports of “what’s happening inside the domestic Church.” But if the gathering, which Köhler Ryan described as more of an “Assembly of the People of God” than a proper Synod of Bishops, aims to be truly representative, she thinks organizers  should make a point to add more “everyday Catholics” to the mix.

Of course, it’s also true that moms and dads at the synod receive something from the experience that they bring back home.

For Sabov, it’s been the daily words of support and prayer for Ukraine from her fellow delegates.

“This gives us strength in these difficult times and is one of the main manifestations of synodality,” she said.

And for De Urquidi, participating in the Synod on Synodality has allowed him to give his eldest child, Inés, an experience she’ll never forget: a birthday party with the Pope.

De Urquidi’s daughter and wife visited him in Rome earlier this week on the now 10-year-old’s birthday. The whole synod assembly sang “Happy Birthday” to her, and Pope Francis shared some traditional Argentine cookies with the elementary school student.

As he greeted her, the Pope told Ines, “Thank you for lending your daddy to the Church.”

It’s a message that could be shared with her two siblings, and indeed with all the kids of the synod’s moms and dads.