Synod: From Miracle to Mirage

Invited by the Swiss Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Mario Grech gave an interview to Corriere del Ticino on March 21, 2024. The Maltese high prelate favorably evokes the idea of women’s access to the diaconate. “The female diaconate is not something revolutionary; it consists in a different place given to woman in the Church, a place which is a natural deepening of the Lord’s will, which expresses and demonstrates the dynamism inherent in the History of the Church,” he believes.

If Cardinal Grech was just a member of the Sacred College among others, we would only grant limited attention to what would appear to be a personal statement.

But Mario Grech occupies the key Curia position of Secretary General of the General Secretary of the Synod--in other words, this is the man whom Pope Francis has put in charge of implementing one of the reforms which is most important to him: transforming the face of the Church.

Cardinal Mario Grech goes on: “What is new is that the Holy Father has identified ten themes and entrusted them to inter-dicasterial groups.” In plain language, it is a matter of preventing the discussions from being drawn out, at the risk of getting bogged down and resulting in an impasse which would look like a crushing defeat for the progressive camp.

But by acting this way, the synodal approach, touted as the great innovation of the pontificate risks developing into an obstacle course where each obligatory passage would have been carefully planned by the officer commanding the exercise.

“Mirages are, in a way, the lie of the desert,” Jean Cocteau writes. The coming months will tell if the final stage of the Synod on Synodality is in fact the mirage of the future of the Church.