It’s “synodality” Jim, but not as we know it

Synodality: Noun. Walking together, but only when you are told to…

There are perplexing contradictions in Card. Mario Grech’s definition of “synodality”, which he repeated again at the European ecclesial assembly in February 2023 in Prague. It’s important to parse them because Card. Grech is the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, overseeing the current “Synod on Synodality”, and familiar with Pope Francis’ vision for the church.

1. On the one hand, he – in the wake of Pope Francis himself – has been emphasising that the church will have to be a church that listens to all its members, and that “The synodal process is entirely founded on the principle of [mutual] listening” (Card. Grech, speech “Continental Stage: A New Stage in the Synodal Process”, 06/02/2023).
2. On the other hand, both him and the Pope have defended the current practice, which is that at every level – diocesan, national, or international – synods can only be called when the bishops or the Pope say so and, what is more, that it is they alone who can set the agenda for discussion and determine its limits.

Some background: Pope Francis inherited this clericalist model from his predecessors. In 2018, he amended the canon law concerning precisely the procedure to be adopted by synods (Apostolic constitution Episcopalis communio).

A key change he introduced then was making the consultation of the laity a mandatory step for all future synods. While that’s undoubtedly a significant development, the bottom line is that Episcopalis communio leaves the clericalist procedure intact: only the bishops and the Pope can call a synod, control its agenda, and approve (or not) its decisions.

And so we get to the current “Synod on Synodality”, which Pope Francis has called in order to explore ways to make church governance more participatory. Its most ground-breaking feature so far has been precisely a worldwide, open consultation of all Catholics.

Much has been made of such a development, but it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that everything is still firmly channeled within the clericalist confines of current church law as laid down in Episcopalis communio. A vision which both Pope Francis and Card. Grech share, of course, so that we can be fairly certain that in their minds “Synodality” – whatever else it may mean – does not mean the clergy loses control either of the process or of the outcome.

This was made quite clear by Card. Grech in his above mentioned speech in Prague: first, he quoted approvingly Art. 5 of Episcopalis communio, which restricts to the Pope alone the power both to call a synod and to determine its agenda; then he reiterated the same idea by insisting that “non si dà consultazione se il Vescovo non convoca il Popolo di Dio a lui affidato” (“there is no consultation unless the bishop summons the People of God in his care”); and finally driving the point home by contending that that the “long list” of questions emerged from the worldwide consultation of Catholics and summarised in the so-called Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) “does not and cannot constitute the agenda of the synod”, because the latter had been already determined by the Pope, namely “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission”. As the cherry on the cake, he immediately added: “This is in no way an imposition which constraints freedom of speech, but an act of respect towards the Church and those who devoted themselves to deepen that theme”.

Card. Grech provided yet another confirmation that whatever emerges from the synodal consultation can be ignored if bishops or the Pope regard it as going beyond the agenda they alone can set. His insistence that doing so does not constraint freedom of speech is small consolation to all Catholics worldwide who contributed to the conversation in the hope of being heard: I suspect “You are free to speak, and we’re free to ignore you” is not the winning message the good Cardinal may think it is.[1]

In fact, in January 2023 Pope Francis defended yet again the view that only the bishops or the Pope can call a synod and set its agenda, by approving a Vatican letter firmly rebuking the crucial proposal by the German “Synodal Way”: namely, to establish a permanent and representative “synodal council” over the Catholic Church in Germany.

3. Thirdly – and in line with their idea that “mutual listening” must only occur within the boundaries set by the bishops and Pope alone – both Card. Grech and Pope Francis have also made it clear that they do not want the synod to make recommendations or take decisions on doctrinal issues (see Card. Grech’s quote above about the “long list” of issues emerged in the DCS), and that in any case the ultimate decision-makers will be the bishops.

So despite Card. Grech’s encouraging definition of synodality as “mutual listening” between bishops and laity, he’s been adamant that, at the end of the day, it is the bishops alone who will evaluate whether and how to take into account the voice of the laity.

In summary: according to Card. Grech, “synodality” means the laity can only listen to and debate when and what the Pope or bishops allow them to, and that in any case the laity can have no vote in the final decision-making process, which is still reserved to the bishops.

That’s still a firmly, unapologetically clericalist “synodal” process, and I fail to see how they plan to overcome it, and establish a truly synodal church of mutual listening. Action speak louder than words: if synodality is not to remain a fuzzy feel-good catchword, canon law must be amended to ensure that synodal bodies include representative laypeople and be deliberative, not merely consultative.

In any case, the bottom line is that despite Card. Grech insisting that the “long list” of issues summarised by the DCS will not set the agenda of the October synod of bishops in Rome, I very much suspect it will. To do otherwise would reveal “synodality” to be a mere PR exercise, and I suspect most bishops are aware of that.

Rays of hope

Having said that, the current process is certainly an improvement of what came before under the preceding two popes, where synods of bishops were a sort of stage-managed act whose agenda, discussions, and conclusions were almost entirely controlled by the Roman Curia and the Pope. It caused a huge amount of frustration not only among the laity, but among bishops themselves.

Now at least the consultation of the laity has been made an essential, constitutive part of the synodal process, and my sense is that a majority of bishops in Europe welcomes that.

And even though in theory bishops can still ignore or hand wave away whatever emerges from such a consultation, it becomes more difficult for them to do so without thereby undermining their own authority even further. Again, I believe a majority of bishops understands that.

So overall, I’m cautiously positive about this new course kick-started by Pope Francis. Although still entirely within the clericalist canon law, the mere fact of having made the consultation of all baptised a legal requirement as the first stage of all future synods has the potential for upending the current clerical structures.

Fear of change

There has been pushback, of course, on all the well-known issues. Occasionally appeals have been made to the primacy of spiritual conversion, as if that would make structural reforms superfluous (an old chestnut particularly among more conservative Catholic theologians since at least the Reformation).

I was particularly stricken by the intervention of the Archbishop of Riga Zbigņevs Stankevičs, in his position as spokesperson for the synodal consultation in the Catholic Church in Latvia. But rather than presenting the results of that consultation, he highlighted instead what he regarded as good results obtained by him, with colleagues from the Catholic hierarchy.

Among them, he mentioned the successful political pressure he personally applied against the legalisation of same-sex unions, and against the ratification by Latvia of the 2011 Istanbul Convention against domestic violence.

His argument against the latter was that it was a backdoor for “gender ideology”, and unconstitutional. This was struck down by the Supreme Court of Latvia itself in 2021, although Archbishop Stankevičs omitted mentioning that detail.

While Archbishop Stankevičs’ views were a minority in Prague, they were a stark reminder of the wild variety of opinions among Catholics in Europe alone.

The Final Document summarising the discussion of the European ecclesial assembly in Prague

The document recognizes the differences of opinion concerning the main issues around church reform: that alone is a small if welcome step forward.

However – just like it had been the case for the Document for the Continental Stage – the document which came out of Prague does little beyond merely listing those differences, and recommends no solutions.

The document also submits a final list of eight priority topics for further discussion at the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October 2023.

On the one hand, it is unfortunate that no explanation is provided as to which criteria were used to compile the concluding list of eight priorities. Was it their relative frequency of their emergence during the discussion? We are not told, and that is a lacuna which should be remedied.

On the other hand, four of those priority topics stood out to me. Specifically, and proceeding from the most general to the most particular, the document ends by asking further discussion on how to exercise authority in a “synodal” way; how to determine “which decisions belong on which level, from the local to the universal”; how to relate ordained and non-ordained ministries; and last but not least, it voices a request for the synod in Rome to “take concrete and courageous decisions on the role of women within the Church and on their greater involvement at all levels, also in decision-making and decision-taking processes”.

In summary: the mere fact that the document acknowledges widespread disagreements with some official Catholic teachings – on women’s ordination, same-sex relationships, the exclusion of laypeople from church governance, and so on – is a welcome change.

And even though bishops can still ignore that rare expression of the (dissenting) voice of the laity – at least if we stick strictly to canon law – it becomes more difficult for them to do so without thereby undermining their own authority even further. I believe a majority of bishops understands that.

By Luca Badini Confalonieri

Endnote:

[1] The full passage, in Italian: “Va detto che le sintesi hanno fornito un lungo elenco di temi emerso dalle consultazioni e registrato con puntualità dalle Conferenze episcopali. Quell’elenco non costituisce l’agenda del Sinodo, come abbiamo ribadito con il card. Hollerich nella recente lettera a tutti i Vescovi: non lo può, non solo per il numero dei temi, impossibile da assumere e sottoporre a un serio discernimento, ma perché il tema del Sinodo già esiste: «Per una Chiesa sinodale: comunione, partecipazione, missione». Non si tratta in alcun modo di una imposizione che riduce la libertà di parola, ma di un atto di rispetto nei confronti della Chiesa e di quanti si sono dedicati ad approfondire il tema.”

Some News reports on the European ecclesial assembly in February 2023 in Prague:

1. Sarah Mac Donald, “Catholic Church must welcome all as equals to be truly ‘synodal’“, The Tablet, 01 Feb 2023: “Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri, director of research at the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, said the Church ‘desperately needs a constitution’. The revised Code of Canon Law maintained the exclusion of the laity from exercising governance, he said, thereby making true co-responsibility impossible. It denied any institutional expression of the converging consensus of the Church, thus ensuring the laity would have no role in decision-making. “We must work together to ensure that future recommendations of the synod produce concrete changes in canon law, in order to prevent the current clerical system from continuing by inertia,” he said.
2. Sarah Mac Donald, “After synodal assembly Europe’s bishops pledge to ‘work tirelessly’ to enlarge Catholic tent“, National Catholic Reporter, 15 Feb 2023.
3. Maria 2.0, Newsletter, no. 3 (March 2023): „Die bloße Tatsache, dass das Dokument weitverbreiteten Widerspruch gegenüber einigen Punkten der offiziellen katholischen Lehren anerkennt – bezüglich der Frauenweihe, gleichgeschlechtlicher Beziehungen, des Ausschlusses der Laien von der Kirchenleitung und so weiter –, ist eine begrüßenswerte Veränderung. Und obwohl Bischöfe noch immer die seltene Äußerung der (Gegen)stimmen von Laien ignorieren können – zumindest wenn wir streng am kanonischen Recht festhalten –, wird es doch schwieriger für sie, dies zu tun, ohne dadurch ihre eigene Autorität noch weiter zu unterminieren. Ich glaube, die Mehrheit der Bischöfe versteht das.“ Dr. Luca Badini Confalonieri, Direktor für Forschung, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, Großbritannien.