Vatican City, Oct 18, 2023 / 13:48 pm (CNA).
The next stage of the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality opened Wednesday with a call to focus on authority, decentralization, the co-responsibility of the laity, and concrete changes to the institutional Church.
Before beginning discussions Oct. 18, delegates were presented with a sweeping vision for the hierarchical Church in a theological exposition from Father Dario Vitali.
“When we reach the consensus that the Church is constitutively synodal, we will have to rethink the whole Church, all the institutions, the whole life of the Church in a synodal sense,” the Italian theologian said.
Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, also spoke about “new processes, institutions, and structures,” and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich asked what concrete changes the synod assembly can bring about for lay Catholics.
“Big media” will evaluate the synod based on possible changes “on a very limited number of subjects,” Hollerich told synod delegates as he introduced the next topic for discussion: “Participation, governance, and authority.”
Instead, people in parishes and on pastoral councils, the relator general said Oct. 18, “are wondering what will change for them, how they will be able to concretely experience in their lives that missionary discipleship and co-responsibility on which we have reflected in our work.”
Delegates to the Oct. 4–29 assembly of the Synod on Synodality began discussing the last part of the Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, on Wednesday afternoon.
Section B3 of the document says one of the priorities addressed during the continental stage of the synod was “the question of authority, its meaning, and the style of its exercise within a synodal Church.”
It also asks: “How can we imbue our structures and institutions with the dynamism of the missionary synodal Church?”
‘Rethink ecclesial institutions’
Vitali, coordinator of expert theologians at the synod, told the assembly Wednesday that “the possibility of developing a style and a synodal form of Church depends on the virtuous circularity of ‘sensus fidei’ [sense of the faith], magisterium, and theology.”
“Having broken this alliance has left the Church to navigate by sight,” he said, while “a true exercise of synodality will allow us to think with patience and prudence about the necessary institutional reforms and decision-making processes that involve everyone in an exercise of authority that is truly suitable for the growth of the people of God, a mature and participating people in this horizon.”
Lay Catholics, Hollerich said in his remarks, “are wondering how this is possible in a Church that is still not very synodal, where they feel that their opinion does not count and a few or just one person decides everything.”
People are interested “in the small but sensitive changes to the issues we are preparing to tackle,” he added.
Vitali addressed the topics of authority and decentralization in the Church in light of synodality in a theological reflection for synod delegates.
“The synod process can be understood as the most complete exercise of synodality in the Catholic Church,” he said, and “starting from here we can begin to rethink ecclesial institutions.”
“But rather than listing individual reforms, criteria must be indicated that can inspire a reform of the Church itself in a synodal sense,” the Italian theologian said.
Synodality, he continued, “does not unilaterally emphasize the role of the people of God or that of the pastors, but of all the subjects — the people of God, the College of Bishops, the bishop of Rome — articulating dynamic unity, synodality, collegiality and primacy.”
In his own address to the assembly, Radcliffe said in its last module the Synod on Synodality will now consider “what new processes, institutions, and structures are needed.”
“These will not be solutions to management problems but fuller expressions of who we are,” he said.
“What institutions do we need to express who we are as men and women of peace in an age of violence, inhabitants of the digital continent?” the priest said. “Every baptized person is a prophet. How do we recognize and embrace the role of prophecy in the Church today? What about the prophetic voice of women, still often seen as ‘guests in their own house’?”
“The history of the Church is of endless institutional creativity,” Radcliffe underlined.
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Saying, “we want A synodal church, we want A church which …” is tantamount to spiritual adultery. It is like an idiot husband, with his wife right beside him, who says, “I want a wife who …” He IS an idiot – THE wife, his wife, is right beside him, but he is so focused on himself that what matters for him is whether THE wife matches what he really loves, which is A wife, his image of his ideal wife. If his actual wife changes her looks or mannerisms to match the idiot husband’s ideal, he will still not in truth love her, but only himself in that he loves his imagined ideal, and this thing (his wife) gives him an experience to whatever degree of his true love (the image in his head)!”Theologians” and others who attempt to lead people to have this sacrilegious attitude towards THE Bride of Christ are acting in betrayal of the Groom, Jesus. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Jesus is right to come as Judge to deal with these people. As for me and my household – we love the Lord and we love His Bride as He made her, with her divine constitution that cannot be changed – we will serve the Lord! AND! Did you see the sleight of hand, instead of judging all innovation by what we have received, the Deposit of Faith, a switcheroo has taken place, switching in place of the Deposit of Faith a “consensus that the Church is constitutively synodal” so that all that has been in the past will be judged by this as yet nebulous and conveniently maliable term “synodality”, regardless of any essential connection to the Deposit of Faith.
Very good analogy, Michael. In fact perfect, given that the Church (as Bride) was born from the side of Christ on the Cross. Now we say, “Nah, not loving that Suffering Servant, thing. We’d like something else.”
The “opinion of the people of God”? Does this include Jesus’s opinion? Are the synod pressers saying that Jesus’s selection of lessons, works and words were inadequate for conveying what He wanted of His Church? How did He imply that His Life and Salvation was in need of theologian analysis by hierarchically oriented hardened world ordering academics? To Whom should the people of God listen?
I wish I had a single solitary clue as to what any of that meant.
It’s corporate speak. We’re not expected to understand it.
It’s the same sort of foolishness I used to read when I worked for a large, woke corporation. No one takes it seriously.
What does all this even mean?
My thought exactly.
To all four posts above:
It means we get to decide what is sinful and what is not, and God better shup up and fall in line or else.
Here’s the authority structure for the Body of Christ:
Jesus, out of love for us, to save us from the slavery of sin, gives us his commands, and “good shepherds” (bishops who obey Jesus) “guard, unite and govern” according to the commands of Jesus.
As for the “self-styled-progressives” at their “progressive-establishment-FALSE-ways-town-hall,” they are as Michael said, adulterers (echoing Jesus 2000 years ago, to the establishment in Jerusalem).
Their “Synod-walk” is akin to “how-they-walk” every June, in their municipal pride parades, in homage to “the spirit” guiding them, the god they serve: Pachamama.
Very good points, Michael.
And I think your metaphor is sound.
Here’s another one to consider.
The synod is not an effort to “listen” to the Holy Spirit. If it were, the Dark Vatican would not have handpicked agendized activist Catholics in such numbers.
Rather, it’s an effort to produce an outcome that they can celebrate as “Spirit-driven.”
It’s like they’re using the synod as a ventriloquist’s dummy that they’ve dubbed “the holy spirit,” which speaks in their voice and no one else’s.
The deliberately nebulous and meaningless verbosity emitted from the synodal attendees is astounding.
Well all disingenuous gobbledygook aside, it is clear that “synodality” is intended to mean that from now on, all Church doctrine and catechism will conform to what the members desire, inspired by the Zeitgeist. not the Heilige Geist.
You have said politely what I might have said more bluntly. I bow to your superior restraint, as age does not seem to have made more patient or circumspect.
Bingo
Heresy, rather than Big Media, threatens all that is holy, pristine, revealed by God as vital for salvation.
Amazing, for one who lived through the transition from a Church structure instituted by Christ and the Apostles, centralized in unity of faith and morals by the Fathers of the Church from Polycarp, Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine to a Synodal envisioned Church that is in process of decentralization, deconstruction, fragmented, vaporized into a name only Catholicism, crafted by God forsaken theologians to suit the self serving individualist, the morally deranged, the Antichrist personality – to be aware of eschatological consequence while hierarchy ordained as defenders of the faith remain sheepishly silent when they should be roaring lions in defiance.
Most shocking, the chief shepherd attired in sheep wool, sheep who bleat in terror, he carries on about climate science while countless infants created in God’s image are executed, cannibalized for cosmetics, body parts for the aging rich. Is it wonder that all this rupture from Christ is contrived by a Vatican driven synodal centralization of the morally deranged?
A very good observation. Jesus help Your Mystical Body in need..
🙏🙏🙏
If you can’t dazzle them with the truth, baffle them with the…meadow muffins.
The synod starting in October 2021 is concerned with “the great majority of sacramental marriages are invalid” (Pope Francis, 16 June 2016) causing a “worldwide catastrophe” (Pope Francis, 10 June 2021) of occult as hidden, incest connected as substitute mate sexual abuse of groomed psychologically and or emotionally vulnerable family members with a non-economic false status inducement of “higher vocation” (TTMHS, PCF, 1995, 35; cf. St Paul, 1 Cor 7:25-34) of consecrated celibate marriage vowed to man in Christ to consecrated male female marriage vowed to God for economic advantage of the diseased “familyist” family member groomers by tax-exemption embezzlements and lower insurance cost by fraud.
Pope Francis’ consecrated celibate marriage vowed to man in Christ on the reference point of Mary’s consents in uncertainty of her belief to be joined in immediately successive consecrated marriages: celibate at Lk 1:38: “let it be to me”, and male female at Mt 1:24:”Joseph … took his wife”, on or just after 10 June 2021 was the intended reference point for the synod stating soon after.
Synodality simply means that we have become American Episcopalians: We want to do what we want when we want without any moral or ecclesial repurcussions. And, as with most American Episcopalians, the synodalism being articulated and embraced effectively and efficiently marginalizes and silences those whose biblically based, theologically sound and ecclesially approved perspectives tend toward a far more tempered and informed traditionalism. Dubious, again!
“The synod process can be understood as the most complete exercise of synodality in the Catholic Church,” he said, and “starting from here we can begin to rethink ecclesial institutions.”
How about starting with Catholic schools? They are too expensive for the poor.
Practically speaking, the Catholic Schools must give up general education in those countries where the State is providing it. The resources of the Church could then be focused on “Confraternity of Christian Doctrine” and other programs which can be kept open to the poor. These resources could then be used to help society become more human in solidarity with the poor. Remember, the Church managed without Catholic Schools for centuries. It can get along without them today. The essential factor from the Christian point of view is to cultivate enough Faith to act in the Gospel Tradition, namely, THE POOR GET PRIORITY. The rich and middle-class are welcome too. But the poor come first.