What to make of the ongoing preoccupation with Synodality

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Nov 26, 2024

The “ordinary magisterium” of the Church is a rather flexible and capacious entity. It includes all official ecclesiastical texts which have been formally approved by the Pope. On the other hand, the ordinary magisterium, while requiring obedience, does not rise to the level of infallibility. That requires a more solemn declaration in which the Pope specifies that he is (a) teaching (b) on a matter of faith or morals (c) to the whole Church (d) by virtue of his Petrine authority. Nonetheless, it is presumed (despite being a matter of degree) that a teaching on faith and morals is infallible if it has been taught repeatedly over time by the ordinary magisterium.

This brief overview suggests the caution with which we must respond to something as capacious and procedural as the Final Document of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Pope Francis chose not to issue his own final document on the Synod, but rather to promulgate the final document adopted by the Synod itself as part of his exercise of the Ordinary Magisterium. While available in Italian, the text is not yet officially available in English (though some provisional translations have been posted by non-authoritative sources). Therefore, for most of my readers, it will be difficult to discern the document’s contents with any significant degree of precision. In any case, the document is primarily designed to offer a vision of what it means to operate as “Church”, particularly with respect to the processes used in making decisions and implementing programs—namely, the necessity for widespread consultation and input, and (perhaps inescapably) a certain tolerance for differences of interpretation and implementation.

This last point was emphasized in the Note Pope Francis offered on November 24th to accompany the final Synodal document. In particular, the Holy Father repeated what he had written in his encyclical Amoris Laetitia (3):

Not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth (cf. Jn 16:13), until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does. Each country or region, moreover, can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs.

The Pope also stated that:

In many cases, it is a matter of effectively implementing what is already provided for by existing law, both Latin and Eastern. In other cases, it will be possible to proceed through a synodal discernment and within the framework of the possibilities indicated by the Final Document, to the creative activation of new forms of ministeriality and missionary action, experimenting and subjecting experiences to verification.

The Pope also indicated that the choices made in the local Church, along with the difficulties encountered and the results, are to be faithfully reported in Rome during episcopal ad limina visits.

Inclusion and conversion

What Pope Francis clearly envisions is episcopal governance through a cooperative effort to discuss problems and find solutions that produce good fruit. His preference for a collaborative environment in each diocese, in which there is broad consultation in the search for genuine solutions, is not theoretically unreasonable, and it is something the best bishops and priests have engaged in throughout the Church’s history. It is certainly possible that the post-Tridentine Church, in a prolonged reaction against the splintering of Christianity, tended to foster in many cases a more insular and monarchical model of episcopal leadership, as well as a more insular and monarchical style of leadership among pastors in the parishes.

If so, then much of that has manifestly changed already over the past seventy-five years. At times, of course, such changes have offered a pretext for some bishops and priests and even laity to nudge their parishes in directions that are damaging to Catholic faith, morals and liturgical reverence. But there can be no question that a more collaborative environment has gradually developed among bishops, priests, deacons, religious and laity. It is certainly not far wrong to suggest that new initiatives of both service and evangelization should be developed and tested in a secular society in which many older pathways to conversion, pastoral care and spiritual growth have been reduced in their effectiveness.

The danger, as with every human contrivance, is that the new “synodal” way of addressing these problems tends to emphasize the “process” over the ends in view. As we already know through our own life experience, an emphasis on process—on constant meetings, discussions, and collaboration—is very frequently advocated as a method of altering what Our Lord and Savior has made unalterable—namely the proper ends of human life as decisively and transformatively learned and adopted through an acceptance of the Gospel.

Moreover, we have seen this again and again under the current pontificate—that those who dissent from Divine Revelation and the natural law (for let us be frank) find themselves encouraged to play a collaborative role in shaping our experience of the Church and of her Divinely-guaranteed teachings and structures. How often has the result been inclusion without conversion?

Going forward

There are both positibve and negative ways to respond to all the time and energy the Church has been pressed by Pope Francis to expend on a synodal—or perhaps more descriptively a consultative and collaborative—approach to the contemporary crisis of faith and the corresponding crisis of the Church. I use the term crisis deliberately, for there can be no doubt that the Church is in crisis, a word which actually derives from the need for a “decision” at a “decisive point” or a “turning point”. Indeed, the Church is typically on the edge of crisis, and so is every Christian soul: Each moment it is necessary to decide anew for or against Jesus Christ. The repeated decisions we make may become habitual, for good or ill, but that does not make them any less decisive, critical, or crucial.

A true Christian constantly re-examines his or her habits. The goal is to never obscure Christ, ignore Christ or take Christ for granted. Precisely for this reason, bishops and pastors will have to take even “synodality” with a grain of salt, for no mere process assures good outcomes in and of itself. Moreover, as we have seen so dramatically over the past three years, at a certain point consultation and collaboration, when they become ends in themselves, will always be used by those “Catholics” who do not accept Catholic teaching, and so will at times get in the way of decisive and effective action.

Bishops and priests will either find that out quickly or no longer be of any use. They will also find that it is just as easy to hide behind their collaborative structures today as it was to hide behind their mantle of authority yesterday. Instead, Our Lord preferred the image of a shepherd, very probably because shepherding is above all personal and can be reduced neither to a series of directives nor to a particular process. In other words, good shepherding is a responsibility undertaken not at a procedural risk but at a personal risk. Good shepherds lead their sheep to safe pastures, protecting them from their waywardness, from their stupidity, and from their predators.

Knowing when and how to consult and collaborate is important to every form of success. But nothing secondary may be made primary. The responsibility for the care of souls cannot be shifted to either a theory or a procedure. Pastor means “shepherd”. It does not mean “facilitator” or “committee chair” or “chief consulting officer”. The job description comes from Christ Himself. It cannot be changed…and it hasn’t been.