Sin and Synodality: The Struggles of the Third Mexican Council

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The contribution is interesting and useful in the context of reflecting synodality as a historical, ecclesial, ethical and ecumenical question. The technical and methodological research standards are basically fulfilled. However, the method could be explicated. Also the spelling mistakes should be corrected, for example on the second line of the abstract "Spain" is missing in the expression "New..." or in the footnote 22: "... Poole cites the of the...": "the of" should be removed.

You could also explain more explicitly what these sentences on page 5 implicate: "But expressions of communal guilt and recognition of large-scale social crimes are something that the sixteenth-century Church of New Spain would have related to directly."

 

Author Response

Thank you for the feedback.  The method is embedded within the opening and closing of the article--each synod, past and present, can help to shed light on what the Church did then and does now. Hopefully the edits, especially at the end, clarify this. In sensitive cases like this and where there is little to no voice of the past Native person, it may be best to let the present voices help us to understand how the Church of the past acted synodally.

The spelling mistakes and typos were corrected. A footnote was added to explain this sentence, which did deserve an explanation. See footnote 23.

Thank you, again.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an excellent piece of academic writing which is a joy to read. The present reviewer especially appreciates the way the author uses a historical case study to shed light on a contemporary theological issue (i.e., synodality). I recommend publication of the manuscript.

One possible concern I have is with the ending of the article. Rather than finishing with a set of questions related to the Third Mexican Council (though I appreciate they are of a broader relevance), it might be more robust to conclude the paper with some questions - or, perhaps even better, comments - more explicitly related to the current synodal process.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The overall quality of English is excellent. I only recommend a round of light proofreading focused on:

1.) checking the capitalization as there are ambiguities with certain terms, such as natives vs Natives, church vs Church, and synod vs Synod (I appreciate the latter is capitalized when referring to the present Synod on Synodality, but it is not consistent);

2.) clearer distinction of longer cited passages (quotation marks, a more visible indentation, etc.).

Author Response

All editing of the language should be complete. I appreciate the kind words and feedback. The end has been revised. The questions were meant to be asked of both the past and present Church. The main goal was to show that even a flawed Church like that of the 16th century dealing with such serious social problems acted synodally and that the present process can help show us how they did that. I also indented the block quotes. I used "the Church" to describe the Catholic Church as a proper noun. I made the synod usage consistent. In quotations, I left the author's original usage of these terms. Thank you again!