Pope Francis and the open questions of the Synod

To judge by the working document recently published, the synod assembly by which Pope Francis wants to introduce the “synodal method” as the practice of the Church will be a reflection of the Francis pontificate.

The working document of the final stage of the Synod on Synodality has substantial differences compared to the first. It is slightly longer, seems to have been drawn up in a more “classical” way—that is,, more closely in keeping with older working documents from previous synods—and does not include the part of the methodology and themes that characterized the working document of the first part of the Synod of Bishops.

When there is a controversial issue, a commission deals with it. When a decision needs to be made, the Pope still makes it. When the decision is unpopular, it magically becomes something for which the assembly asked, rather than something on which the pope insisted.

This seems like a harsh analysis, and it probably is. However, to understand it, we need to go deeper.

The document is somewhat affected—and this is probably a good thing—by the debate that took place not only during the first part of the meeting last October but also around the last assembly itself. There is the Synod of the People of God underway in Germany, which aims to have a synodal council with a deliberative form. Pope Francis himself has stopped this initiative several times because it risks calling into question the unity of the Church.

Then, there is the extraordinary pressure on the inclusiveness of LGBTQ+ people. The use of the acronym in some Church documents—the first synod document to use it was the instrumentum laboris of the 2018 Synod—creates a substantial problem. The Church has never categorized based on sexual gender because it uses the concept of human being, which is a universal concept. There are no identities that are “more equal” than others. This message is still strongly perceived within the Church, and the 2023 Synod removed the acronym from the summary declaration, preferring the term sexual orientation.

The issue is not even mentioned by name in the working groups because it falls within the broader theme of morality, but that isn’t even the point. On the one hand, there is a declaration such as Fiducia Supplicans, which opens up blessings for irregular couples while saying that it does not wish to bless any irregular union. On the other hand, there is media pressure from some activists (even priests) who use Fiducia Supplicans for the “historic” blessings of homosexual couples. On the one hand, there is Pope Francis, who has harsh comments behind closed doors about a certain homosexual tendency in the Church, and on the other, there is Pope Francis, who encourages the advancement of pastoral care for LGBTQ people.

In short, there is confusion that not even an explicit synodal declaration could untangle because there no longer seems to be a distinction between doctrine and practice, between pastoral practice and “ideological” practice (if it can be called that), and between right discernment and public management.

But confusion risks growing if the synod assembly is then transformed into a “deliberative” rather than a merely consultative body, as requested by point 70 of the working document.

Cardinals Grech and Hollerich, respectively the general secretary and special rapporteur of the Synod, clarified how synodal “practice” still provides for the central role of the bishop’s—the individual bishop in his see—role of listening, discerning, and deciding matters in his jurisdiction. That clarification came in a letter sent in January 2023, before the continental stages of the Synod.

The working document, however, still asks the bishops to apply a synodal practice. Decisions, in some cases, become community-based, and it is not excluded that decisions be made with the people and for the people. What prevents a majority from imposing his point of view and having it accepted by the local bishop? And what will happen if this point of view is not in line with either the doctrine or the practice of the Church?

Here lies the role of the Pope, who is called to be a guarantor of unity, and the bishops, who are called to teach and discern. But if the Pope governs with an eye to public opinion in his declarations, what will be the example of the bishops? And will this be enough to change the doctrine of the Church?

That couldn’t be enough. However, a deliberative synod could ultimately also silence German pressure, which precisely wanted to be able to deliberate on questions of doctrine. It will then be seen how all the instances will be balanced, and that will be the real problem.

The Synod wants to show the “listening method”—as if there had never been listening before in the Church—and aims to be open-minded in addressing issues. Pope Francis created a reform of the Curia “on the way,” carried out through trial and error, which did not remain definitive even at the promulgation of the Apostolic Constitution, Praedicate Evangelium.

With the Synod, we seek to create an open and inclusive Church, whatever these two words mean. Pope Francis wanted to characterize his pontificate in this way, starting with the famous phrase “Who am I to judge?” when he returned from his first international trip.

In the end, however, Pope Francis makes his choices, has his opinions, and commands in an often non-collegial manner.

A commission and a committee analyzed the Vatican communication reform. The female diaconate had two commissions. In the first case, the reform still had subsequent adjustments that were not part of the commission’s suggestions. In the second case, it has yet to be decided, despite Pope Francis’s emphatic “No!” to CBS news.

Will this be the case for the controversial issues of the Synod? It is easy to accept this for now because the Synod is not called to make decisions but rather to establish a method. But what would happen if the Synod became a body in which decisions were made?

Sometimes, the problem lies precisely in the vagueness of terms and definitions. Everyone, after all, can say what they want, considering total openness to discussion. However, there needs to be direction to the debate. There is only one final address. At the moment, that’s all there is to synodality.

It remains to be seen whether the next synodal meeting will change things.