The dangerous ‘spirit of synodality’

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Nov 15, 2024

The Synod on Synodality—a project on which Pope Francis embarked in 2021, a project that spawned hundreds of meetings and thousands of pages of verbiage, a project that threatened to go on forever—has finally ended.

Or has it?

Officially the Synod closed on October 26, having approved a final statement the previous day. “What we have approved in the document is enough,” Pope Francis declared, explaining that he would not follow up with the customary apostolic exhortation commenting on the Synod’s deliberations.

Yet even while the Synod churned through the lengthy preparations that led up to the plenary meeting, the Pope had created ten study groups to reflect on particular topics—thereby taking those topics off the agenda for the October assembly. Prominent among those reserved topics was one that had dominated early discussions among the Synod participants: the question of whether women could be ordained as deacons. Other potentially hot topics were consigned to the study group that would ponder: “Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issue.”

In that sense, then, the Synod’s work is incomplete. But more importantly, the work will go on because Pope Francis has made it clear from the outset that the real purpose of the Synod was to begin a process, to create a new understanding of what it means to be the Church, to usher in a new “synodal” approach to Catholicism. In that sense the work of the Synod of Synodality is only now beginning. Thus Cardinal Blase Cupich, returning from his work in Rome, reported to America magazine: “The final synod document is not a landing strip. It’s a launching pad.”

What is synodality?

But what, exactly, has been launched? What is a “synodal” Church? What does “synodality” mean?

The manifest inability of the Synod organizers to answer those questions in simple declarative sentences had troubled the preparatory sessions, and remains a source of frustration even after the final document has been approved.

In that document the Synod participants did manage a plausible definition of the term:

Synodality is the walking together of Christians with Christ and towards God’s Kingdom, in union with all humanity. [28]

And then again, just a few sentences later:

In simple and concise terms, synodality is a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the Church to be more participatory and missionary so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ.

Two themes are sounded here. Synodality means “walking together”—as the etymology of the word suggests. And synodality requires both spiritual renewal and structural reform. But what does this all mean in practical terms, as applied to the way we function as the Church?

(Here I cannot help pausing to note that the most enthusiastic proponents of the “synodality” prefer to discuss how we should behave “as Church,” omitting what grammarians call the definite article. Whatever synodality means, it certainly is not definite.)

If I invite you to “walk together” with me, what is your immediate response? You probably want to know: “Where are you going?” If I am headed east, and you want to go west, the conversation breaks down quickly.

As Catholics, fortunately, we can agree on a destination. We all want to “walk together” toward sanctity, or toward closer union with the Lord, or toward the evangelization of the world. Since these are really different ways to describe the same goal, it seems there are good prospects for a “synodal” approach.

But there is another crucial question to be asked, isn’t there? “How do you plan to get there? What route will we take?” Here too we might have different plans. The scenic route or the direct route? The tough hike across the mountains or the smoother but lengthier path? How fast will we go? Where will we stop for food and rest?

Well, it’s a big Church, and all sorts of people are making the trip with us. Our walk together should allow for the austere silence of the Carthusians and the noisy activity of big happy families. We will be—we are—walking in different groups, at different paces, singing different songs as we go. So once again, what does it mean to say that we are walking together?

A disappointing final statement?

The 28,000 words of the Synod’s final statement describe a Church that listens to the faithful, that builds relationships, that works to transform the world. At times this vision of the renewed Church is edifying, but the picture never comes clearly into focus. What exactly will change, or should change, or must change, to bring about this “synodal” result?

To that crucial question the final document offers no satisfactory answers. Perhaps it is noteworthy that when the Synod ended, and the final document was made available only in Italian, there were no protests. In fact more than two weeks passed before even “working” translations were produced—in English and German, with other language groups still waiting—and virtually no one commented on the delay. The three years of worldwide preparation had led up to the approval of a statement that no one was anxious to read.

And understandably so, because the final statement of the Synod is a frustrating document, characterized by an insistence that all serious problems can be solved by a “synodal” approach. The term “synod,” in all its various forms, appears 269 times in the final statement: almost exactly five times per page. (In comparison the name of Jesus appears just 31 times, the word “tradition” 29, “Catholic” 26, and “sacrifice” not once.)

In the meetings with other cardinals before the conclave of 2013, then-Cardinal Bergoglio issued a memorable warning against becoming a “self-referential” Church. But the final conclusion of his most ambitious project produced the most self-referential statement available. The Synod, through a synodal process, confirmed the importance of synodality.

The potential for mischief

But then the final statement was never the real purpose of this Synod, was it? Remember that the statement called for “structural reform.” That is the real, unspoken goal of the Synod project.

As the Synod assembly ended, the faithful still had only the foggiest idea of what “synodality” meant or implied. But one thing was abundantly clear: in the eyes of the Synod—in the eyes of the Vatican—“synodality” was a very good thing. So the term could now be invoked, as for years the “spirit of Vatican II” has been invoked, to justify whatever liberal Catholics wanted to achieve.

Evidently some Synod participants were awake to the dangers here. A substantial minority voted against the Synod’s recommendation that a new study group should consider “how to make liturgical celebrations more an expression of synodality.” Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, explained that the opposition was rooted in fear of a “liturgical revolution,” and assured reporters that no such revolution was under discussion. But older and wiser Catholics know how the “spirit of Vatican II” gave rise to a liturgical revolution far removed from the vision set forth in the actual Council documents. There is no guarantee against the same sort of mischief arising in the aftermath of this Synod.

The final document of the Synod stresses repeatedly the need for a “listening” Church. The preparatory process, too, had been designed to ensure that the Synod would hear from the widest possible range of viewpoints. Nevertheless, in the second section of the final statement, which focuses on “ecclesiastical discernment,” the Synod participants completely miss what is surely the most important message for Church leaders to hear: the reality that the Church is losing ground wherever prelates spend too much time “listening” to the secular culture, and gaining new converts wherever the bishop boldly proclaim the ancient truths of the faith.

As I set out to write this short essay this morning, the words of the 2nd Epistle of St. John, read at Mass today, were still echoing in my mind:

For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning, in which you should walk…..Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.

If we propose to “walk together” as a “synodal” Church, the first order of business should be to determine whether we are headed in the right direction, or whether we are simply walking in place.