Synod on Synodality: Assessment and Perspectives

The previous five articles have examined the content of the Final Document (FD). It would appear that those in charge of the synod took great care to ensure that there were no outbursts on the sensitive subjects that had animated the previous session and the intermediate discussions. But the main point lies elsewhere.

Relatively “Neutral” Content

“Relatively” to what was expected by many of the Synod's participants, from parishes and countries to continental assemblies and the results of the first session held in October 2023. The question of homosexuality was absent, and that of women's ordination to the diaconate appears only to say that it “remains open.”

The definition of synodality given in the FD is based on the work of the International Theological Commission (ITC). One of the Synod's key words, “co-responsibility,” has served to promote the power of the laity, stripping the clergy of the power entrusted to them by Christ himself. The sensus fidei, understood as an “instinct” of the faithful, gives infallibility to the faithful.

Decision-making power is diminished, making it dependent on purely consultative power. Ecclesial personnel should be regularly monitored, and existing participatory bodies—which often include lay people—should be developed, or even opened up to non-Catholics. Another watchword, “consensus,” must be sought at all costs in decision-making.

The parish is to be rethought as an NGO cell, and special councils are to be held regularly, which may seem unexpected but is perfectly coherent for those who know what is going on behind the scenes. The papal function needs to be rethought in terms of synodality. Finally, the training of clergy must be reviewed in the same light.

The Process Is More Important Than the Content

Those who would rejoice that Pope Francis has decided not to write a post-synodal Exhortation and that the FD—as clarified by the General Secretariat of the Synod—has no normative value, would be very wrong, for the important thing is not in the content: it is in the process patiently initiated over these three years.

The Pope wanted to set in motion a dynamic, a modus operandi as the ITC skilfully puts it. One of the recurring elements of the FD is the mention of the practice of “conversation in the Spirit”, one of the trademarks of the synod (5 times). As for the experience and “living” of the synodal method, it appears on every page of the text.

We should not think that the Synod will provoke a tidal wave of “synodal” practices in the Church: perhaps that is what some naïve synodists are hoping for, but it will not happen, for many reasons, such as the usual resistance to change, the refusal of some of the clergy and even the faithful, the difficulty of implementation, and many other reasons.

On the other hand, the method will be used wherever it is expected, or even already present: the example of the Synodal Path is too easy to give, but Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, South America, and perhaps other countries, will hasten to put in place what they have already prepared and which was only waiting for the impetus that the Synod would give them.

In other words, what this site has denounced, and which has also been anticipated by members of the hierarchy, such as Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, is going to start happening fast: a multi-speed Church where more or less significant, more or less serious divergences will be created between countries. The result will be rampant Protestantism and the rupture of Catholic unity.

Several major players—such as the German episcopate—have made no secret of their intentions, quietly asserting that there will be a national Synodal Council open to the laity, as provided for in the decisions of the Synodal Path, but which is for the moment “blocked” by Rome. Blocked is probably too strong a word.

There will be synodal events in the various countries, and why not particular councils, as the FD suggests? For, under the new Code of Canon Law, it is permissible to introduce lay people into these meetings, as long as they form a smaller proportion than the clergy. The Synodal Path had circumvented this difficulty, but today, with this synod, it is virtually non-existent.

This centrifugal movement in relation to Rome, the center of the Church, has become almost inescapable under the current conditions. And the Pope's long-standing proposal to give more responsibility to the Bishops' Conferences, a proposal taken up in the FD, will provide further impetus.

This superiority of process over content is an illustration of Pope Francis' principle set out in his encyclical Evangelii gaudium: “time is greater than space,” which, he explains, “also applies to evangelization, which calls for attention to the bigger picture, openness to suitable processes and concern for the long run.” And, he adds, it “enables us to work slowly but surely, without being obsessed with immediate results.”

Schism As Unity

With synodality, Francis has launched a self-sustaining process of creating a mosaic, the ideal basis for an ecumenism that “establishes harmony amidst differences,” as the Synod put it. The culmination of the ecumenical aspirations of the Second Vatican Council will thus be reached: the Catholic Church will be integrated into a vast whole with the other “communions.”

This will put an end to the “scandal,” repeatedly denounced by progressives, of the division between Christians, not through conversion to the one and only Church, the Catholic Church, but through dilution into a whole that would fit the notion of a generalized schism, according to Tertullian's famous phrase about heretical sects: “Schism is their very unity.”

And what would become of the Papacy? This will no longer be the concern of Francis, who will then have disappeared, but who will have left his successor the legacy of an ungovernable Church, scattered in peripheries where the Faith will be dying, separated from its source.

But for a true disciple of Jesus Christ, today's hope must be all the stronger for the fact that it is precisely when the storm seems intent on engulfing Peter's boat that, with a gesture, its divine Founder brings about a great calm. We must await this intervention of our divine Savior with faith.