Church Up in Smoke: Theological Critique of Guidelines of Synod on Synodality

'The “Instrumentum laboris,” ... is proof of this reckless process of the “pneumatological reconfiguration of the Church” promoted by Pope Francis. A process in which the Holy Spirit is assigned a role as enormous as it is vague and smoky, devoid as it is of criteria that would attest to the authenticity and validity of what is meant to be said and done in his name.'

From Settimo Cielo

By Sandro Magister

Joachim of Fiore had foretold the advent of an age of the Spirit, with the happy dissolution of the structure and doctrine of the earthly Church. It is easy to imagine, given how the synod on synodality is proceeding, that the great Jesuit theologian Henri De Lubac (1896-1991) would have associated Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio as well with the variegated and lasting “spiritual posterity” of the visionary medieval monk, which he surveyed in a book of nearly a thousand pages that made quite a splash when it came out in 1979.

The “Instrumentum laboris,” the working outline for the upcoming session of the synod, with the watchword of “conversation in the Spirit,” is proof of this reckless process of the “pneumatological reconfiguration of the Church” promoted by Pope Francis. A process in which the Holy Spirit is assigned a role as enormous as it is vague and smoky, devoid as it is of criteria that would attest to the authenticity and validity of what is meant to be said and done in his name.

Above all there is a great shortcoming in the “Instrumentum laboris” in terms of references to Christ, to the paschal mystery, to the cross, which are “for the Christian the measure and criterion for the discernment of spirits,” as Yves Congar (1904-1995) wrote, the Dominican theologian who was one of the protagonists of the conciliar era and dedicated impressive studies precisely to the essential link between pneumatology and Christology.

The following note is a critical reading of the “instrumentum laboris” precisely on the basis of its Christological void, in the footsteps of Congar.

It was written for Settimo Cielo by Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the archdiocese of New York and a professor of theology at Boston College for thirty years.

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LESSONS FOR THE SYNOD FROM PÈRE CONGAR

by Robert P. Imbelli

Yves Congar, O.P., was among the great protagonists of ressourcement and aggiornamento at the Second Vatican Council. It is noteworthy that, after the Council, despite serious physical infirmities, Congar wrote three magisterial volumes on the Holy Spirit. Even more noteworthy, he then wrote a subsequent small volume, “The Word and the Spirit,” summing up his reflections on pneumatology. And this is his conclusion. “If I were to draw one conclusion from the whole of my work on the Holy Spirit, I would express it in these words: no Christology without pneumatology and no pneumatology without Christology.”

Congar was inspired by the image of Saint Irenaeus that God always works, in creating and saving, using his two hands: the Word and the Spirit. Of course, the ongoing challenge, both in Christian living and in theology, is to keep Christology and pneumatology in creative tension. If in the past there may have been an overemphasis on the side of Christology, the present tendency seems to overstress the Spirit’s working.

Congar strikes the needed balance when he writes, “The Spirit displays something that is new, in the novelty of history and the variety of cultures, but it is a new thing that comes from the fulness that has been given once for all by God in Christ.”

However, when one reads the lengthy and diffuse “Instrumentum laboris,” that will guide the labors of the Synod, one is struck by the rather pallid Christological vision set forth in the document.

No doubt important elements can be culled from its pages. Thus, we are told that “Christ sends us out on mission and gathers us around himself to give thanks and glory to the Father in the Holy Spirit” (#34). The participants are reminded that the communion we share is not merely “a sociological coming together,” but “is above all a gift of the Triune God” which entails “a task, which is never exhausted, of building the ‘we’ of the people of God.”  And the paragraph 46 ends with a compelling, but undeveloped quote from Ephesians 4:13: “until all of us come to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” Finally, we are promised that “In a synodal assembly Christ becomes present and acts, transforms history and daily events, and gives the Spirit to guide the Church to find a consensus on how to walk together towards the Kingdom and to help all of humanity to move towards greater unity.” (#48).

But these elements are never gathered into a coherent and challenging whole. Like the need, often expressed in recent magisterial texts, for an “integral anthropology,” one misses here the presence of an “integral Christology.” In reality, as “Gaudium et spes” teaches, an integral anthropology must be based on an integral Christology. Sadly, in the Instrumentum, crucial dimensions of Christology are lacking. There is scant reference to the “paschal mystery” of Christ – a concept so important at Vatican II. Indeed, there is not even a mention of the Cross, so that one begins to fear it is among the “marginalized” that the Instrumentum deplores.

Further, one notes an egregious omission, both significant and perhaps symptomatic. Twice the “Instrumentum” cites (see #s46 and 52) a central affirmation of “Lumen gentium”: “The Church is in Christ as a sacrament or instrumental sign of intimate union with God and of the unity of all humanity” (LG, 1). But each time it is cited, “in Christ” is left out. Whether this be advertent or inadvertent, the omission is telling and reductive. For only in Christ can true and lasting unity be realized.

I contend that a robust Christological vision is an absolute necessity, lest the three synodal themes of “communion, mission, and participation” lose their distinctive content and form. All transpire in Christ and must manifest their unique Christological depth. To repeat with Congar: “The Spirit displays something that is new, in the novelty of history and the variety of cultures, but it is a new thing that comes from the fulness that has been given once for all by God in Christ.”

Only an ample Christological conviction can provide trustworthy orientation and guidance for “conversations in the Spirit.” Indeed, such “conversations in the Spirit” require criteria of authenticity, tests for the validity of its discernment. Congar is only echoing the New Testament and the Fathers when he writes: “Jesus Christ is for the Christian the measure and criterion for the discernment of spirits.”

Thus, the condition for any “pneumatological reconfiguration” for Church is that the Church be “configured” to its head and become ever more “transfigured” in him. As Congar insists: “There is no autonomy of pneumatic experience with regard to the Word and therefore with regard to Christ. The confession: ‘Jesus is Lord’ is a criterion that the Spirit is at work.” And he insists, “There is only one body which the Spirit builds up and quickens and that is the body of Christ.” In short, there is no untethered Spirit, no decapitated Body. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ; and Christ is the only Head of the Body, the Church.

Pope Francis, with his signature concreteness, exhorted the Cardinal electors at the Mass in the Sistine Chapel after his election:  “We can walk as much as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord… When we do not profess Jesus Christ, the saying of Léon Bloy comes to mind: ‘Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil.’ When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.”

And the Holy Father concluded his homily with words that surely pertain also to the participants in the forthcoming Synod: “My wish is that all of us, after these days of grace, will have the courage, yes, the courage, to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Lord’s Cross; to build the Church on the Lord’s blood which was poured out on the Cross; and to profess the one glory: Christ crucified. And in this way, the Church will go forward.”

Perhaps, then, the real need of the Synodal process and path is less for “facilitators” than for “mystagogues.”