All the Synods of Pope Francis. But There’s Not a One of Them That Works

Sandro Magister looks at the damage done, and that will be done, by Francis's insistence on synods. 

From Settimo Cielo

By Sandro Magister

Francis is the most autocratic pope of the past century, the one most inclined to do and undo everything himself, yet he never stops calling for a synodal government of the Church. No matter that of the three great synods he has called up to now, two have resulted in a stalemate, on young people and on the Amazon, and another, on the family, was brazenly steered from the top down. He has decided to dedicate the next synod, scheduled for 2022, precisely to the question of the Church’s synodality.

Then there are the synods on a national scale, these too much invoked by Pope Francis. But here as well with results that are either nil or highly risky.

The first case, that of the synod that isn’t there, concerns Italy, of which the pope is the primate. Since 2015 Francis has been prodding the Italian bishops, personally or through his squires, the Jesuits Antonio Spadaro and Bartolomeo Sorge. But always unheeded. Until, last January 30, he visibly lost his patience and expressed to the Italian episcopal conference no longer a desire but a command, ordering that it “must begin a process of national synod, community by community, diocese by diocese.”

The trouble is that this synod made “from the bottom up and from the top down,” another formula dear to Francis, and “community by community,” has not been given a clear configuration, whether in a single block or in an array of groups at multiple dimensions and levels. So much so that Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the CEI, feigning in “Avvenire” of February 3 to obey the pope's command, actually said that yes, in the Church there are great councils, there are synods, the real ones, but there is also a “gathering” that in Italy is that of the national ecclesial conferences held every ten to eleven years since 1976, first in Rome and then in Loreto, Palermo, Verona, Florence. So it has been and so it shall be, he conveyed, and this should be enough.

Bassetti does not say so, but his terror and that of many other churchmen is that one or more national synods, made up not only of bishops but also - as is the fashion today - of clergy and laity, all equal and with voting rights, may set in motion in Italy as well that landslide which is leading straight to a schism in nearby Germany, where a “Synodale Weg,” a “Synodal path” of this kind is in full swing:

But what is stranger is that even Pope Francis is terrified of what is happening in Germany. And he has done quite a bit to try and stop or at least slow down the landslide. But there too without being heeded:

On the contrary. The news that the pope also wants a national synod in Italy was greeted north of the Alps with a round of applause. “We no longer feel that we are an exception,” said Thomas Sternberg, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZDK), the lay group that in the synod of Germany, together with theologians, deacons, and religious, has many more votes than the bishops and is calling the tune.

Sex, women, power. The issues on the agenda of the German synod are explosive, and the disruptive resolutions that will emerge from it already enjoy an overwhelming majority of votes. Even among the bishops the opponents are very few, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand and, as if that were not enough, the most prominent among them, Cologne cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, has recently been hamstrung by a “quarrel” concerning sexual abuse in his diocese.

It is enough to read the texts produced so far by the “Synodale Weg” to understand the risks it entails for the Church, not only in Germany but worldwide. The plenary assembly that was scheduled in recent days has been postponed until the autumn on account of the pandemic. But the main document that will be discussed and put to the vote point by point has already been prepared and made public on January 22.

It is about forty pages and was produced by the first and fundamental of the four “Forums” into which the synod is divided, headed by ultraprogressive Essen bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck and by Claudia Luecking-Michel of the Central Committee of German Catholics.

Its title is “Power and separation of powers in the Church,” and it calls for a radical democratization of the structure of the Catholic Church, with the relative admission to sacred orders of married men and of women, and direct election of bishops.

Here is an anthology from it, with our subtitles.

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FIRST: DEMOCRATIZE THE CHURCH

The Catholic Church is in a deep crisis. On the one hand, there are internal tensions between the Church’s doctrine and her practice. On the other hand, there is a gap between how power is actually conceived and exercised in the Church, and the standards of a pluralistic, open society in a democratic constitutional state.

An examination of the order of power in the Church would be necessary for reasons of successful inculturation into a democratic society based on the rule of law.

MINORITY, FALL IN LINE

In the course of serious synodal deliberations and in respect for the standards of a democratic society, we expect that recommendations and decisions adopted by a majority will also be supported by those who themselves have voted differently.

A SYNOD IS OF ALL, NOT ONLY OF BISHOPS

At present, canon law provides that only bishops have decision-making rights in synods. This restriction must be overcome.

IF A BISHOP LODGE A VETO, CANCEL IT

The status of the already existing bodies must be strengthened so that they can not only advise but also decide, both at the parish and diocesan levels. If it is foreseen that the bishop or the pastor can veto a decision, a qualified majority must be established by which it can be overruled, if necessary.

LET ALL BE ELECTED, EVEN THE BISHOPS

An essential form of participation is the right to vote. Whoever is entrusted with a leadership office in the Catholic Church must be elected for this purpose by the people of the Church, if necessary through elected representative bodies. As long as universal Church law does not provide for elections, suitable forms must be found under diocesan law for the people of God to participate effectively in the selection of persons to assume a leadership office in the Church.

CLERICAL CELIBACY? TO BE RECONSIDERED

In access to the priesthood, celibacy is at issue, which has long been part of the discipline of the Latin Church, but is not obligatory in Churches united with the Apostolic See, nor does it exclude married Protestant pastors from the priesthood in the case of conversions. At the Amazon Synod, the question of celibacy for secular priests has been openly discussed. The focus is, on the one hand, on solving pastoral problems, which are aggravated in Germany by a dramatic decline in the number of active priests, especially also of ordinations, and, on the other hand, on the question of whether there is not a great benefit to be drawn from the way of life of married people for the exercise of priestly ministry, as is the case in Orthodoxy.

ON SECOND THOUGHT, MAKE WAY FOR MARRIED PRIESTS…

Celibacy has deeply shaped the spirituality of the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church; it is a treasure that the faithful do not want to do without. However, the idea that those who have proven themselves in faith and life (usually referred to as "viri probati") can also be ordained priests must be reconsidered in view of the pastoral challenges, the charisms given, and the positive experiences with ordained deacons . An open discussion is needed on this. This should lead to a vote in Germany, addressed to the Apostolic See, and gathering experiences of the universal Church, so that different pastoral situations can be responded to in different ways locally.

… AND ONWARD WITH WOMEN PRIESTS

The question of the admission of women to ordained ministry is also a question of power and separation of powers, because of the exclusivity of access. It is necessary to strengthen the living unity of the Church and at the same time to allow regional differences to apply.

Whether women can be ordained to the diaconate is currently being discussed anew by the Apostolic See. Forum 1 pleads for a reasoned vote during the Synodal Path, which aims at admitting women to the diaconate. Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis”, stated that the Church has no right to ordain women to the priesthood. However, due to new insights into the witness of the Bible, into the developments of Tradition, and into the anthropology of gender, the coherence of his argumentation and the validity of his statement are often questioned. It is necessary to reconnect again the witness of Scripture and Tradition with the signs of the times and the sense of faith of the people of God. Forum 1 proposes that the church in Germany, during the Synodal Path, should also give a reasoned vote on the question of the admission of women to ordination, which includes an invitation to the universal Church and the Apostolic See to study anew the questions raised, and to find solutions.

TOWARDS A "FIRST DEMOCRATIC COUNCIL"

There is a need for a synodal forum also in the universal Church, an assembly of the universal Church, a new council, in which believers within and outside of ordained ministry deliberate and decide together on questions of theology and pastoral care as well as on the constitution and structure of the Church.

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It comes as no surprise that such a document should have ended up, in Rome, under the lens of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. Nor that Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the pontifical council for promoting Christian unity, should have once again rejected another of the innovations advocated by the Church of Germany, that of Eucharistic communion shared by Catholics and Protestants, justified in a recent theological document written and signed by representatives of both parties. Back in 2018 the congregation for the doctrine of the faith had called a halt to intercommunion, in a letter from its cardinal prefect Luis Ladaria to the president of the German episcopal conference at the time, Munich cardinal Reinhard Marx. Without being heeded.

Even Pope Francis, increasingly uneasy, once again called the Church of Germany to order in a passage from his December 21 pre-Christmas address to the Roman curia:

“Without the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can even start to imagine a ‘synodal’ Church that, rather than being inspired by communion with the presence of the Spirit, ends up being seen as just another democratic assembly made up of majorities and minorities . Like a parliament, for example: and this is not synodality. Only the presence of the Holy Spirit makes the difference.”

But once again his words slipped away like quicksilver. At the beginning of 2021, in a marathon interview with “Herder Korrespondenz,” German episcopal conference president and Limburg bishop Georg Bätzing said that “we should not dwell on every statement made by the pope in every single audience.” And he reiterated all the goals of the “Synodal path,” including the blessing of homosexual couples, without backing down by so much as a millimeter.

So dear to Francis, synodality is in fact burying his pontificate and dividing the Catholic Church, assimilating it to the Protestantism that in Germany is already at a very, very advanced stage: