It’s tempting to simply ignore the upcoming Synod on Synodality’s second session, despite its importance for the Francis pontificate. But that would be a mistake. Bishops and other attendees will gather in Rome this October for discussions based on the Synod’s latest instrumentum laboris, or working document, released last month. The session will bring to an end an elaborate, three-year series of global consultations on the meaning and potential application of synodality to Church life. Insightful reviews of How to be a synodal Church in mission – the synodal text – have already appeared on this site. But the material is too problematic to exhaust with just those commentaries. Thus, these thoughts.
Synods of bishops (from the Greek words sun, “together,” and hodos, “way”) have an ancient pedigree. They declined in the West as the papacy grew in influence but were revived in the wake of Vatican II. In their modern, Roman incarnation, their main value has been advisory, providing counsel to the pope on doctrinal and pastoral issues, and building fraternity among bishops internationally.
One of the impulses behind synodality is a desire to modify the overly centralized papacy inherited from the 19th century, the better to involve the entire people of God in the work of the Gospel. In theory, this is a healthy idea. But synodality’s actual content – since its miraculous emergence at the 2018 synod – has never been clear.
How the concept has been pursued, and to what end (see here and here for cautions) is even more concerning. I served as the on-location aide to a delegate at three synods in Rome: 1997, 2015, and 2018. All of them, to one degree or another, suffered from complicated procedures and a sometimes-heavy curial hand. But the synod on synodality sets a new standard in tedious theater.
Process is the idol of modern “progressive” thought. If a process is complex, extended, and histrionic enough, it can justify almost any result. Fatigue ironically enhances credibility. It also has the benefit of wearing down opposition. The 2024 synodal text quotes one episcopal conference as claiming that “gratitude for this synodal journey is profound”. . . .this, despite the fact that popular participation in synodal consultations has often been embarrassingly low. And some of the recommendations derived therefrom have a suspiciously predictable quality.
The result should surprise no one. A Vatican website poll last month asked the question, “Do you believe that synodality as a path of conversion and reform can enhance the mission and participation of all the baptized?” It drew 88 percent negative replies. It was promptly shut down. With unintended candor, the working document acknowledges “[t]he circularity characterizing the whole synodal process.” Truer words were never spoken.
The text notes that in its broadest sense:
Synodality can be understood as Christians walking in communion with Christ toward the Kingdom along with the whole of humanity. Its orientation is toward mission, and its practice involves gathering in assembly at each level of ecclesial life. It involves reciprocal listening, dialogue, community discernment and creation of consensus as an expression that renders Christ present in the Holy Spirit, each taking decisions in accordance with their responsibilities.
Synodality’s stress on Christians as a pilgrim people has venerable roots in Church history. And Pope Francis’ desire for a Church of compassion and mutual respect, a Church where people listen to each other rather than shout past each other, is admirable. But that’s not the substance of synodality to date.
Lacking a framework with clear boundaries grounded in truth, the work of discernment and consensus can produce unwelcome outcomes. It’s led the German Church and other European Catholics into effective schism, thanks in part to a lack of consistent, unambiguous teaching from the Holy See.
The 2024 synodal text alludes to a grassroots Catholic desire that the Church should be “less focused on bureaucracy.” Good idea. Synodality “should not be thought of as an organizational expedient but lived and cultivated as the way the disciples of Jesus weave relationships in solidarity.” This is well said.
But in the next breath, it suggests that “it seems appropriate to create a recognized and properly instituted ministry of listening and accompaniment which would make this characteristic feature of a synodal Church an enduring and tangible reality.” In other words, another brick in the institutional edifice.
The main problem with How to be a synodal Church in mission is simple. The text never answers the question of “how” in a convincing way. It’s dense with ecclesial jargon, but that’s hardly peculiar. Many Vatican documents suffer from the same disease. The trouble is that “missionary” and “synodal” don’t persuasively fit together.
The entire synodal process has been, and remains, inward-looking. The 2024 text argues that “the purpose of formation in the perspective of missionary synodality is to form witnesses.” It seeks to shape “men and women capable of assuming the mission of the Church in co-responsibility and cooperation with the power of the Spirit.” These are wonderful sentiments.
But missionary work is fundamentally outward-focused with an urgent, compelling, and uniquely Christian message of salvation. It demands confidence and zeal. It demands an awareness of souls at stake. Yet in a text of some 20,000 words, the word “salvation” occurs only 13 times. And when it comes to converting a fallen world, sentences like “Concrete procedural options, in their variety, must be consistent with the requirements of an underlying synodal theological methodology” sound like irrelevant gobbledygook.
The greatest challenges facing the Church today are anthropological, not structural, i.e., what it means to be human. And, meanwhile, Christians around the world face persecution. Even in the “developed” democracies, hostility to Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, is rising. Putting our time and resources into the wrong priorities is worse than imprudent. It’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Internal soul-searching has its place. God can draw good out of anything, even a synod on synodality. But our real needs lie elsewhere.
