Pope Francis, the contradictions of the Synod

For all the expectations the late synod on synodality created, it really turned out to be a wet squib. One thing the synod accomplished, however, was to make the language in which the Church describes herself more sociological.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, general rapporteur, presented a detail of the Synod’s final document as the real novelty.

The document, which Pope Francis has decided to adopt in its entirety, no longer mentions the universal Church except in one case, but rather the whole Church.

Fr. Giacomo Costa, special secretary of the Synod, explained the meaning of this change. “We do not want there to be the perception,” Costa said, “that the universal Church is at the top of a system of local Churches. The Church is the whole Church, in the ensemble of the Churches.”

For his part, Cardinal Hollerich emphasized the change as the absolute novelty of the Synod. Hollerich also said the semantic shift goes a good ways toward answering a vexed question about the role that continental organisms can have. “CELAM (Latin American Episcopal Council) has found its dimension,” he said. “Other continental organisms are looking for it, but we start precisely from this idea of the many particular Churches together.”

It is a detail, perhaps, but it highlights what seems to be one of the Francis pontificate’s key objectives: treating the Bishops Conferences as a sort of federation and giving them doctrinal tasks. Thus, a way of life that does not create conflicts or schisms but which, in the end, does not even create a great Catholic world, as was thought from the beginning, is allowed.

The idea is to reach out to those Churches that feel “subservient” to Rome and restore their dignity by modifying their language.

It is worth noting that a similar line of reasoning was used when the Vatican Secret Archives were renamed the Vatican Apostolic Archives.

The secret came from the “Secretariat,” but over time—it was explained—it had taken on the idea of something mysterious, difficult to decipher, and obscure. So, it was worth changing the name to avoid misunderstandings about the role of the Church.

In this sense, Universal can give rise to misunderstandings only if one does not know the idea of the term. It comes from universus, which means everything in Latin but is only one of the words used to define the whole in the Latin language. It is a whole that is practically synonymous with “Catholic.” Catholic comes from the Greek ‘olon. Taken with the preposition, kata, we get kata ‘holon, or ‘according to / one with the whole.’

The Church is universal simply because what it believes is always valid everywhere, despite different enculturation. The local Churches are part of the universal Church. One can say they are part of the whole Church, but an essential nuance is lost, and the depth given by millennia of doctrine is also lost.

Why, then, give in to a linguistic change that risks turning into a boomerang?

Why accept letting people think that, after the Synod, the Church can no longer be considered one, holy, catholic, and apostolic? That is the message that is being conveyed, even if it is a message that is not in the intentions of those who proclaimed it.

And here lies the great contradiction of the Synod.

The final chapters of the document also discuss the need for ongoing formation on various topics, including theological and canonical ones, as well as on the Social Doctrine of the Church.

However, due to a probable cultural deficit,  it is decided to try to change the language and adapt it to the so-called modern perception rather than focusing on the formation and making what the Church says understandable and logical. A traditional language is abandoned only because it is no longer understood, instead of explaining the conventional language.

Some accept this reasoning brought about by the sound and genuine will to evangelize, to allow everyone not to feel excluded, and to maintain that spirit of listening and understanding typical of the Synod.

Yet, one cannot help but notice how a statement of this kind can be easily manipulated.

If the Church is no longer universal, if inculturation comes before the truths of faith, then why should the Synod of the German Church, despite the Pope’s warnings, not continue on its path?

After all, it is an expression of a culture; it responds to the demand that is found in its local public opinion, which is—at least according to what is told—for a more transparent and responsive Church to society’s needs. Not a heretical Church, not a different Church, but a Church that responds to its culture.

In doing so, arguments are used that cannot be compared.

For example, the Missals of other rites, such as the Congolese one, are given, thus comparing liturgical inculturation with a question of structures and administration. But these are two different levels.

Structures are changed simply by not giving them meaning. We lose sight of history in favor of something new that does not respond to the questions of faith. The question of continental levels is a fascinating theme in this sense.

Hollerich is vice president of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), an organization born from a typically synodal movement. The organization was an idea of the European bishops during the Second Vatican Council, accepted by Paul VI and then implemented by John Paul II, who understood its potential.

In the last plenary, the president of the CCEE, Archbishop Gintaras Grušas from Vilnius, also discussed the possibility of reforming the CCEE by dividing it into geographical areas, revealing a project under discussion. Perhaps this is why Hollerich did not mention the CCEE and spoke of organisms that must find a dimension.

However, dividing the CCEE into geographical areas, with periodic interim meetings, would somehow betray the very history of the organism, which was born to create a communion between all the Bishops’ Conferences of the European continent, from the Atlantic to the Urals.  The aim of the CCEE is not to divide itself into geographical areas but to bring the particularities of each geographical area into communion to allow the spiritual growth of the Church in Europe.

In short, the risk is to bureaucratize the Synod, create new structures where there is no need, and forget the previous history. The risk is to mistake this synodal path as a sort of “Vatican Council III,” after which nothing can be the same.

However, even the Second Vatican Council did not want to change the Church.

The late Council, in fact, anticipated the significant problems that arose in 1968, but its aim had never been to revolutionize. Benedict XVI clarified this.

The theme of synodality brought back the old narrative of rupture. At this moment, it seems that all things must be made new to make them beautiful and current.

But is this the case?