The Sources of the New Synodal Doctrine (2)

The Catholic Understanding of the Synod

As Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize explains, “the ‘synod’ or ‘council’ is an institution of ecclesiastical law [...] one of the means available to the Pope to exercise his government as supreme Pastor” (”La papauté du risque du synode” in Synodalité ou romanité, Actes du XVIIe Congrès théologique du Courrier de Rome, Paris, p. 121, main source of this article).

It is used by the Supreme Pontiff to exercise his power of jurisdiction, not by a solitary act, as he regularly does, but surrounded “by some or even all bishops (as happens in the ecumenical council).” The Catholic conception thus recognizes a supreme power in the Pope, which he can sometimes exercise by uniting some or all of the bishops in this act.

Among Schismatics

Today, the form “of government the most widespread among schismatics is autocephalism,” Fr. Gleize explains, where each local church is autonomous. But this is a very recent form of government, dating back no further than the 19th century. In this context, the synod “is defined as the representative body of this polyarchy [multiplicity of heads] of the autocephalous churches.”

Among Protestant Heretics

Ecclesiastical society is in some sense external to the Protestant Church, which is invisible by nature: “all the rightly baptized are priests [...] [and] some of them are appointed by the community to exercise the function of ministers [or pastors] within the framework of worship and a visible Church.” From the 16th century onward, a presbyterian-synodal constitution was organized.

“The reformed synod is made up of laypeople and pastors and has decision-making power in matters of Church government,” Protestant Jean-Paul Willaime explains. Thus, “the synod is defined as a body [...] that is truly deliberative and executive,” Fr. Gleize notes. There is a shared authority between the priests (all the faithful) and the synod.

How Pope Francis Thinks of the Synod

Fr. Gleize's study of Francis’s synodality discerns two successive approaches of the Pope. The first, from 2013 onward: the author describes it as “collegialist” in the sense that it takes up the doctrine of collegiality promoted by Vatican II in chapter III of Lumen Gentium (LG). The Pope notes that the Synod of Bishops is at the service of the Church's mission as an expression of collegiality.

The “logic of this position is to make the Pope the head of the college in the sense of a ‘primum inter pares.’ This logic follows from the doctrine of the sacramentality of the episcopate set out in no. 21 of LG” and implies that the Pope possesses nothing more, by virtue of his sacrament, than the other members of the episcopal College. What does his election add to him, if not a simple primacy of honor?

But in his Address on October 17, 2015, delivered on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, “the Pope's thinking resolutely changes direction,” Fr. Gleize notes; it reveals “the central idea of his thinking: it is no longer the idea of collegiality, but the idea of synodality.” And he immediately relates this term to journeying and gathering.

Two central elements emerge: on the one hand, “the idea of journeying together, of traveling the same path.” And on the other, “the idea of living an adventure, with all its unpredictability, the idea of venturing out together under the breath of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit being the main architect of the journey.”

The Synod Expresses the Idea of “Journeying Together”

In the 2015 Address mentioned, this idea is based on the one hand on the sensus fidei, which is expressed in LG no. 12 and which Francis explained in his encyclical Evangelii gaudium (November 2013). Expanding on the Council's idea, Fr. Gleize explains that the Pope affirms that the sensus fidei “raises the People of God to the level of a prophetic People, directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, and for all that, teaching.”

The fundamental reason for this inspiration, and the infallibility that flows from it, is that “The presence of the Spirit gives Christians a certain connaturality with divine realities, and a wisdom which enables them to grasp those realities intuitively, even when they lack the wherewithal to give them precise expression” (Evangelii gaudium, no. 119).

Pope Francis uses a term for this connaturality: sense, which he mentions in the 2015 Address. He goes on to say: “our formulations of the faith are expressions of a life lived and pondered as a Church. ” (Video Message of His Holiness Pope Francis to Participants in an International Theological Congress Held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, Buenos Aires, September 2015).

The Synod Is an Adventure Lived under the Breath of the Spirit

Through this lived connaturality, the Holy Spirit can trigger “a deep and varied dynamism in the ecclesial community,” Francis explains on October 4, 2023. This implies listening. It is the inversion of the ecclesial institution: it is the bishops, it is the Pope, who must listen to the People, or more exactly, everyone must listen to everyone else.

This also implies that “every baptized person, every member of the faithful has become, by virtue of his or her baptism, a missionary disciple,” Fr. Gleize notes. He goes on to quote the Pope in an address from 2013: “The Church is the holy people faithful to God and in Him, ‘In virtue of their baptism, all the members [...] have become missionary disciples’ (Evangelii gaudium, no. 120).

This decisive idea should be remembered: “every member of the People of God has become a missionary disciple, ‘In virtue of their baptism,’ and no longer by virtue of a mandate from the hierarchy, as traditional doctrine would have it,” Fr. Gleize notes.

Conclusion

After this exploration of the Pope's synodal concept, the author concludes: “Pope Francis‘ idea of the ’synod' is obviously much closer to the Protestant idea [...] than to the Catholic or even the schismatic Orthodox idea. The principle underlying this idea is in fact the Lutheran principle of the universal—or common—priesthood, which is first and foremost the fundamental prerogative of all the faithful.”

“A priesthood which itself derives its raison d'être from the even more fundamental principle of justification by faith alone, a principle of autonomy of conscience, in the sense that the Spirit first inspires believers, prior to any original mediation by a hierarchy. If this mediation intervenes, it is only at a second stage, to discern and express in dogmatic language ‘what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.’”

Those who have followed the Synod on Synodality and read at least the final text will have recognized here the fundamental inspiration that guided the process and ultimately brought about the idea that Francis has always had in view. An idea that is deeply rooted in the Second Vatican Council.

So it comes as no surprise that Pope Francis, in his Note of November 24, 2024, which accompanies the publication of the Final Document of the Synod on Synodality, makes express reference to his Address of October 17, 2015.