SoS Sat Report: The Week that broke Synodality

The talking is over, or to be accurate the listening is over, time for action

As you read this, the final document of the Synod of Synodality is being drafted, the culmination of a more than 3 year process that never really gathered much enthusiasm from a Church already jaded by the preceding secretive Synods of this Pontificate, with pre-arranged outcomes. I don’t think I’ve seen more apathy, and not just a lack of enthusiasm, for anything in the Church more than this Synod, but here we are, it is almost over, or it will never be over, depending on what the Holy Father has decided.

College students experiencing Synodality on Friday (Photo: Vatican Media)

Fractures over decentralisation

Over the last four days of the Synod the kumbaya that had slowly built up over the nearly two months separated by a year of “listening in the Spirit”, was destroyed by the debate over what could constitute ‘healthy decentralisation’ by giving Bishops’. Conferences “genuine doctrinal authority”, something that Pope Francis himself first proposed all the way back in 2013 in the blueprint for his Pontificate, Evangelii gaudium.

The Holy Father has not practiced what he preached in this regard. Over the course of last 11 years, Rome has increasingly taken more power away from bishops, be it over the liturgical life in their own dioceses or the requirement for bishops written permission from the Holy See before erecting communities of religious in their own diocese. A significant ecclesiological problem that has bubbled on in the background, namely what are the limits of the power a diocesan bishop and relationship between his authority and that of the Bishop of Rome.

The bishops at the Synod, have lived with a Pope who has slowing been taking away more of their powers and transferring them to various dicasteries of the Roman Curia. And they seemed to have had enough.

With this in mind I want to quote the relevant section of the Instrumentum Laboris of this Synod, with my emphasis added, before discussing what transpired on the Aula floor.

“96. Eastern hierarchical structures and Episcopal Conferences are fundamental instruments for creating links and sharing experiences between the Churches and for decentralising governance and pastoral planning. "The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal conferences are in a position ‘to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit’ (Lumen gentium 23). Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of Episcopal Conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated" (Evangelii gaudim 32). Seeking how to be a synodal Church in mission requires addressing this question.

97. From all that has been gathered so far, during this synodal process, the following proposals emerge: (a) recognition of Episcopal Conferences as ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority, assuming socio-cultural diversity within the framework of a multifaceted Church, and favouring the appreciation of liturgical, disciplinary, theological, and spiritual expressions appropriate to different socio-cultural contexts; (b) evaluating the real experience of the functioning of the Episcopal Conferences and the Eastern hierarchical structures, and of the relations between Episcopates and the Holy See, to identify the concrete reforms to be implemented; the ad limina visits, which fall under Study Group 7, could be a fitting context for this evaluation; and (c) ensuring that all Dioceses or Eparchies are assigned to an ecclesiastical Province and an Episcopal Conference or Eastern hierarchical Structure (cf. CD 40).

On Wednesday came the moment for these proposals to first be discussed, with those belonging to German, Belgian and Dutch churches eager to get significant concessions to their way of thinking, firmly in the belief that having doctrinal authority is necessary for the survival of the Church in their countries. Before I go on too much further I want to just say I detest the use of phrases like the ‘German Church’, the ‘Belgian Church’, and so on, that has become the norm in the Aula, at the Synod press conferences. There is only one Church, and the division of the Church on national lines, as has become the norm following the establishment of Bishops’ Conferences has not aided Church unity in the slightest, and has become the ecclesial equivalents of the 19th Century political nationalist movements that Vatican I and Vatican II had been convened to confront.

What transpired on the Synod floor was significant pushback from all the language groups, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, across all continents on allowing bishops’ conferences to have any autonomous doctrinal authority. What is significant at this Synod, compared to previous ones is the lack of a German speaking language group, which has meant that the German bishops have been more thinly spread among other groups. Going into the Synod it was believed that this would give them greater ability to influence the reports of the language groups. This proved not to been the case. What has transpired is that the progressives, like they are in the practicing Church at large, are in a clear minority at this Synod.

Of course it must be said that the proposal of giving bishops’ conferences genuine doctrinal authority received significant push back at the Synod last year, but the Holy Father, for whatever reason, decided to include it on the agenda at this year’s meeting. This may have also contributed to size of the opposition, with bishops displaying their frustration their ‘no’ from last year was not listened to.

The pushback was strongest in the French and English language group reports, and it did not stop when the floor was opened for individual interventions. The criticism focused on avoiding anything that could damage the unity of faith, emphasis that bishops’ conferences are manmade entities whilst the papacy and episcopacy are divinely ordered, the real threat to Church unity over changes to truth regarding homosexuality, and the obvious threat of relativism.

The situation was so bad that the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, probably at the behest of Pope Francis himself, had Fr. Gilles Routhier, a theology expert at the Synod from Canada, deliver a presentation to allay some of the fears and concerns that were raised. The move itself didn’t exactly shout Synodality, as the delegates had already made their feelings pretty explicitly known.

Routhier’s main argument had been that historically local Councils had always had doctrinal authority in the Church. The obvious rebuttal would be then why is it necessary for Bishops’ Conference to have the same power as local Councils. If anything, Father Routhier made the situation worse by also implying that doctrinal authority of a bishops’ conference would have would be “based on the hierarchy of truths,” meaning that some dogmas would be maintained by the Church’s universal teaching authority in the Holy See, whilst there would be areas where bishops conferences would be able to teach something else.

The real danger for the Synodal process will come if the proposal for doctrinal authority still makes it into the draft of the Synod final document, which will be debated, amended and voted on next week. The system is such that it highly unlikely to pass a final vote, but the goodwill between the Synod delegates and the Synod organisers will be destroyed if it appears on the first draft on Monday.

Vatican tries to save Synodality

“The Synod is just like the Christian faith, it is an experience, an experience of Christ, and unless we make this experience we can never truly live a Christian faith. The Synod process is a result of the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council.” The words of Bishop Luis Marín De San Martín, O.S.A., Under-Secretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops at Friday’s Synod Press Conference.

Instead of the usual three person panel, a fourth was present, Bishop De San Martín, whose role seemed to be to try to persuade journalists that Synodality is still salvageable. He said the following with a straight face, “the Synod does not promote a Church that is enclosed on itself, or using a language that no one understands, or addressing topics that nobody cares about”

He would go on to say “Synodality rests on four pillars; i) a Christocentric Church, ii) a Fraternal Church, iii) an inclusive Church, and a iv) a dynamic Church.” He also emphasised the need for this Synod to produce concrete proposals, and this will happen because the Synod has been “listening to Holy Spirit", hearing this voice “through the people of God and the signs of the time, because this is how the Spirit becomes incarnated.”

“The Synodal process is never-ending, it never ends, and is made concrete in structures which are nothing but instruments, tools at the service of the Church.” I think they really believe that the failure of the Vatican II to stimulate a new Pentecost in Europe is because the Church has not been bureaucratic enough.

He ended his intervention at the Press Conference by saying we need to “avoid this pessimism that at times strikes us, and this experience of the Synod and discernment”, adding that the Synod “speaks to our hearts, and gives great hope, which gives life to the Church, a Church that brings Christ to the others.”

The Aggressive-Aggressive Pastoral Theology Forum

At one of four pastoral theology forums that were held at the side-lines of the Synod, Professor Myriam Wijlens, a Dutch canon lawyer and theologian, and consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod, spoke on the relationship between the local and the universal.

Her intervention quite forcefully put forward the notion that despite the pushback that decentralisation of doctrinal authority had received in the Synod Hall, “the people of God want much more than making diocesan and pastoral council mandatory, they desire canonical norms to transform them into real vehicles of a synodal Church, allowing them to lift their baptismal responsibility of participating in Christ's royal office." Where is she getting this nonsense?

She added that the people of God want these mandatory diocesan and pastoral councils to be “inclusive, accountable, transparent and ecumenically receptive.” She went on to say that the majority of the membership of these bodies should selected through direct democratic elections of the people of God, and not via appointment by the bishop of parish priest, and that this should be implemented by statute. These councils, she added, should have a majority of lay people. I want to know what kind of lay people have the spare time between working, raising a family, praying, helping the church and the poor, to get involved in this kind of ecclesial politics.

If Synodality is the bureaucratisation of listening, the Church will continue the slow decline it has experienced in the last 60 years.

The Friday afternoon no show

Those advocating for a female diaconate, had their faith in Synodality suffer a major blow on the very first day on this Synod. It was known that the Study groups that the Holy Father had set up in March to deal with controversial topics that dominated the discussion at the Synod last year would give an update at the first meeting of the general congregation, but I suppose some progressives were surprised by the blunt closing of the door to women deacons they was delivered.

I wasn’t surprised but I may have been in a minority. Just the day before I had an exchange with an American Church blogger on Twitter was somehow convinced that despite all of Pope Francis’ clear negative opinions on the female diaconate, that he was secretly open to the idea. I do wonder if he still holds that view now.

As a result of the October 2nd update, Synod delegates had asked whether it would be possible for them to have more direct feedback of the work of these study groups, which the Synod obliged by making the Friday afternoon of October 18, the only free day not on a Sunday, available for Synod delegates to meet with the coordinators of the respective study groups.

The coordinator of Group 5, which is looking at the female diaconate amongst other things, was a no show, and this predictably infuriated the Synod delegates that were in attendance. Victor Manuel Cardinal Fernández apologised for what he described as a “misunderstanding”, I guess not realising that people wanted to speak to the coordinator, but what made the matter worse was