There is a document from the Vatican’s theological advisory commission that seeks to explain and advance “synodality,” a concept of particular importance to St. John Paul II, and now also to Pope Francis. Entitled “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church,” it was published on March 2, 2018, by the International Theological Commission with the approval of its President, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the authorization of the Pontiff.³ The Synod aims at “pointing out the theological roots of synodality, and to push for a reform that shapes the Church in view of synodality,” said Piero Coda, one of the theologians who drafted the document.

Sanctity together

Pope Francis has called for the Church to be “synodal,” which does not just mean holding regular meetings of the world Synod of Bishops, but it means constantly finding ways to live and work in the world with a greater sense of the value of the prayers, experience, and advice of everyone in the Church — including lay people, the document said. In other words, the bishops and priests, though important, are not the only members of the Church in her journey towards sanctity.

At the outset, this perspective allows us to speak of a mysticism for the third millennium, and this brings us back to the most genuine form of mysticism at the origins of Christianity. That is, the mysticism of Jesus and Mary, where vertical union with God was lived among those who were their brothers and sisters, and with them, in the service of all people in the everyday affairs of life. The Christian of the future, as Karl Rahner pointed out a few decades ago, will either be a mystic, one who lives the experience of God in the world, or he or she will simply not exist.

This vertical dimension is, of course, our unity with God expressed in our unity with the Church hierarchy, which should go hand in hand with a collective sanctification with our brothers and sisters in our daily lives. Chiara Lubich wrote decades before: “the great attraction of modern times” is “to penetrate the highest contemplation while mingling with everyone, one person alongside others.”

This document, in fact, calls for the Church to be “synodal” which is characterized by “walking together” as the pilgrim people of God. This is not just an invention of today, but goes back to the early Church herself. Piero Coda said: “the issue of synodality is as ancient as the Church is, so much so that St. John Chrysostom, one of the Fathers of the Church, stressed that ‘synod’ is the name of the Church, that is, that the Church is syn-odos, ‘walking together.’ However, “the notion of synodality, though ancient, has gathered little attention in Western theological discourse. Theological discourse has mostly focused on a series of necessary issues, like that of the primacy of the Pontiff,” he said.

A conclusive demand of Vatican II

On the other hand, theologians have stated that a synodal attitude and way of being Church also flowed naturally from the Second Vatican Council’s description of the Church as communion and its emphasis on the responsibility of all Catholics for the Church’s life and mission, although each person has been given different gifts and roles by the Holy Spirit.

The document explored ways the Church is already exercising synodality, through parish councils, diocesan presbyteral councils, national bishops’ conferences, regional councils of bishops, the synods of bishops of the Eastern Catholic churches, the world Synod of Bishops, and ecumenical councils, like Vatican II.

Any process of Church discernment, the theologians wrote, should begin with a consultation of the laity, and for that to be effective, laymen and laywomen must be given more opportunities for education in the faith and more room in the Church where they can learn to express themselves.

Greater effectiveness also requires overcoming “a clerical mentality that risks keeping them [the laity] on the margins of Church life,” the document said.

Need of “ecclesial conversion”

Calling for “conversion for a renewed synodality,” the document emphasized the need for all Church members to be better educated in “the spirituality of communion and the practice of listening, dialogue, and communal discernment.” Already in Novo Millennio Inuente, according to St. John Paul II, the challenge of this millennium is “to make the Church the home and the school of communion: that is the great challenge facing us in the millennium which is now beginning, if we wish to be faithful to God’s plan and respond to the world’s deepest yearnings” (NMI 43). “We need to promote a spirituality of communion, making it the guiding principle of education wherever individuals and Christians are formed, wherever ministers of the altar, consecrated persons, and pastoral workers are trained, wherever families and communities are being built up.” (ibid.)

There is a need, therefore, for a kind of communal or ecclesial conversion. Without a conversion of hearts and minds, it stated, the existing structures of synodality will be “simple masks without a heart or a face.”

Since the Holy Spirit works within all the baptized, it continues, “the renewal of the synodal life of the Church requires activating processes of consultation with the whole People of God,” including laymen and laywomen.

Discernment Together

The concept of synodality is generally understood to represent a process of discernment, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, involving bishops, priests, religious, and lay Catholics, each according to the gifts and charisms of their vocation.

Synodality, the same document continues, promotes the baptismal dignity and call of all Catholics, values the presence of different gifts given by the Holy Spirit, and recognizes the specific ministry entrusted to pastors and bishops in communion with the Pope for the preservation of the faith and the renewal of the Church.

While synodality is based on the baptismal gifts and responsibilities of each Catholic, it maintained that it is not a call for some form of a Catholic parliament. The pope and the bishops, assisted by their priests, still retain their decision-making authority.

But “the participation of the lay faithful is essential,” the document clarified. “They are the vast majority of the people of God and there is much to learn from their participation in the various expressions of the life and mission of the ecclesial community, in popular piety, and in pastoral work as a whole, as well as from their specific competence in the various spheres of cultural and social life.”

On the other hand, “the authority of the pastors is a specific gift of the Spirit of Christ, the head, for the edification of the entire body, not a function delegated by and representative of the people,” the theologians elucidated.

So the document provides new impetus to the concept of synodality through structural reforms, including requiring that every diocese establish a diocesan pastoral council composed of priests, religious, and laity. The document also raises the possibility of establishing new procedures for the convocation of the Synod of Bishops, in order to more frequently involve broader Catholic representation in episcopal deliberations.

Not only during “synods”

However, the synodal nature of the Church is not something activated only on special occasions, the document explained, though without denying the role of the hierarchy, “It must be expressed in the Church’s ordinary way of living and working,” which always begins with prayer and listening to God’s word, then trying to discern together where and how the Holy Spirit is calling the community to act.

Though in the processes of the Synod of Bishops, Coda said, “there is no practical suggestion, an eventual new procedure must be invented.” He added, however, that “the document raises the issue of a major involvement of local churches,” and proposes “that the bishop will be able to hear from the People of God about possible topics of discussion, before synod assemblies.” This kind of procedure was already adopted for the 2018 Synod on the Youth.

The document also recommends that the establishment of diocesan pastoral councils be made mandatory, which means that the proposed reforms should not only be theological, but also structural, explained Coda.

He also noted that “the establishment of presbyterial and pastoral councils was promoted in the Second Vatican Council’s discussion, in order to advance an ecclesiology⁴ of communion,” and that this request now needs to be carried forward.

Interdependence between synodality and the bishop of Rome

However, Coda added, theological discussion has “helped us understand that synodality and primacy are interdependent.”

“In the Church, an exercise of authority with no interaction makes no sense.” Neither does theological or pastoral deliberation “without the seal of an apostolic confirmation given by the central authority, ” he said.

What is also necessary, I opine, is the right relationship between the Universal Church and the local churches, or the matrix of a sound Trinitarian theological background where true diversity exists, like among the persons of the Holy Trinity who are one, as it were, with the Pope. At the same time, unity does not, in any way, connote uniformity, but each local church has its own particular characteristic to be shared with and offered to the unity of the Universal Church.

Certainly, this requires a historical process depending on our understanding of what synodality is, in “walking together” and how we actualize it in our daily lives, in our parishes and dioceses so that it becomes a lifestyle of today and in the future, always under the loving guidance of Peter.

Fr. Emmanuel “Am” Mijares

Sources:

C. Lubich, Essential Writings, New City Press, New York (USA) and New City London (UK) 2007.

A. Gagliarducci (2018). Retrieved from cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/05/18/international-theological-commission-document-proposes-lived-synodality/

C. Wooden (2018). Retrieved from cruxnow.com/cns/2018/05/07/theologians-call-for-regular-consultation-of-laity-in-church-decisions/

¹ Short for Synod of Bishops, a group of bishops selected from different parts of the world, who meet together to assist the Pope in the defense and development of faith and morals, in the preservation and strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline, considering also questions concerning the mission of the Church in the world.

² A process, instituted by Pope Francis, which aims to reorder the Church’s internal mechanisms for discussion and reflection, and to help shape a new way for the Church to understand and articulate both her internal self-understanding and mission of evangelization.

³ The Pope; from the Latin “pontifex”meaning “high priest,” from a root meaning “bridge-maker.”

⁴ An understanding of the Church