Thanks for the compliment, Mokantx.  Some of my thinking is getting a boost from what I am reading about events in Australia.  The bishops conference there has called a national plenary council for 2020 and I think they are struggling with both how to create listening structures and the roles of lay people in such a council.  

John Warhurst has an excellent article in Eureka Street on this:  Church democracy and the 2020 Plenary Council. Arch Coleridge "wants all voices to be heard, including the disaffected as well as the actively engaged."  But the Church lacks practice and structures in which lay voices are heard, in which discussion is allowed, and both parties (hierarchy and lay) lack any practice in operating together in an ethos, a culture of mutual respect and honest dialogue.  The article is here: https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54037#.WbyENsalnq0  The comments are also good.  

Can you imagine U.S bishops calling for a national dialogue among Catholics?