The Synod on Synodality, which starts at the beginning of this month, is something unique in the history of the Church. It is a synod about a process; in fact you could say, it is listening about listening. In a sense, Pope Francis, whose idea this very much is, has achieved his end simply by the Synod happening at all. In its essential meaning, a synod is “a path with”, so it is an engagement with others; the International Theological Commission suggests that it might be understood by the similar concept of Concilium, or Council, which Catholics are familiar with.
Yet if the idea of Synod is not new, the concept of “synod-ality” is something novel. And so too is a synod that includes members of the laity. The Synods of Bishops that followed the Second Vatican Council were gatherings of descendants of the apostles; their status was clear. But Pope Francis has extended membership of this synod to others: women, laypeople, religious. In fact the number of cardinals present is exactly the same as the number of women, a symmetry which may not be accidental. That makes this Synod something unfamiliar: those non-bishops who are attending are of course baptised Christians, but they do not have a status like a bishop, whose position derives from his office. Their appointment was, in a sense arbitrary, since they represent various views and interests. That gives their selection a very different character.
The greatest achievement for the Pope in the Synod is that it is happening at all. The greatest danger to the Church is that it may be profoundly misunderstood. It is not an exercise in representative democracy. It is not an opportunity to vote on contentious issues. It is not a chance for contemporary opinions to be represented in Church teaching. And the greatest concern about it is that it has raised expectations about what can be achieved to a point where disappointment may follow. For the Church is not a democracy; it is the people of God guided by the Holy Spirit, with the successor of Peter having a unique role in preserving the Church from error. Perhaps the most famous expression of the Pope’s role was St Augustine’s claim against the heretical Donatists; securus iudicat orbis terrarum, that is to say, Peter’s successor can pronounce on what is true for the whole world. But in doing so, the Pope must be attentive to the tradition of the Church and to its members and to his brother bishops, and to the truths of scripture.
What worries many people about the Synod is that it may be both too democratic and too authoritarian. The concept of liberal authoritarianism is something we are familiar with and Pope Francis’s reported attempt to impose pontifical sec-recy on the proceedings of the Synod as well as its decisions looks very much like it. This approach is bad in principle, since openness is integral to the whole thing, and misguided in practice. The Pope’s familiarity with human nature in general and the character of journalists in particular is wanting if he thinks this is even possible.
Further and worryingly, the new head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernán- dez, has recently reaffirmed the Pope’s authority against that of his bishop-critics in a way that sets a worrying tone for the Synod. He dec-lared in a recent exchange that the Pope does not merely have a negative, “static” infallibility – that is, to judge whether doctrinal developments are true and in keeping with the deposit of faith – but another, larger infallibility, “a living and active gift” which others do not.
This sounds very like an effort to see off the Pope’s critics. And when it comes to the Synod, conservative critics are openly worried about where it might lead, including Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Müller; we already know what the late Cardinal Pell thought.
The problem is that expectations about the Synod have been raised to the point where observers are expecting con- crete outcomes, and they may be disappointed. As John L Allen Jr observes elsewhere in this issue, there is no easy resolution of, for instance, divisions about the question of blessing same-sex unions. There is a radical divide between, say, the views of African bishops and those of the German Synodal Way and the Synod cannot simply split the difference. The development of doctrine happens in a number of ways, but rarely by vote.
This magazine, like all Catholics of goodwill, wishes the Synod well. No one could object to the Church listening to her members. The worry is that the listening exercise that preceded the Synod was partial and selective. We must pray for the Synod and its participants. They need the gifts of the Holy Spirit – not least wisdom and understanding.
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