Cardinal: Synod on Synodality poses ‘no danger to the nature of the Church’

 

Paolo Ruffini, president of the synod’s communication commission (left); Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas (center); and Cardinal Michael Czerny (right) at a press briefing on Oct. 19, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez

Vatican City, Oct 19, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Vatican Cardinal Michael Czerny said Thursday that synodality poses “no danger to the nature of the Church,” especially to her hierarchical structure.

The Canadian cardinal, who serves as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, made this assessment one day after Synod on Synodality delegates were presented with a theologian’s sweeping vision for the hierarchical Church.

Czerny was asked a question about concerns that there were attempts to separate Church governance from the sacrament of holy orders at a press briefing on the synod Oct. 19.

“I think the identification between [holy] orders and offices is something that is being overcome,” Czerny said. “In other words, we are understanding orders not to be necessary for every office.”

He pointed to the fact that the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications has been led for several years by a layman, Paolo Ruffini.

“There is no danger to the nature of the Church,” Czerny added, “because there are responsibilities which are already being — and in some cases are already — entrusted to non-cardinals, non-bishops, non-priests.”

Archbishop Dabula Anthony Mpako of Pretoria, South Africa, said at the same briefing that he believes it is commonly accepted that “synodality must coexist with the hierarchical structure of the Church.”

“I don’t think that is under any question,” he continued. “However, what we are probably wanting to see is how the two can work in such a way that synodality begins to infuse the way the hierarchical structure of the Church operates.”

Adding that he is “not at all worried about that,” the archbishop said, “in the Catholic Church, synodality has a unique character, [because] it is a synodality at the center of which there is the chair of Peter, the pope.”

“At the end of the day, hierarchy goes together with synodality,” he said.

In answer to a question about concerns expressed by some U.S. Catholics that the Synod on Synodality has a predetermined outcome with a liberal agenda, Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, said he does “not see a conspiracy, I have simply heard honest, sincere, faithful, charitable conversations, under, shall I say, ‘sub tutela petri,’ ‘under the care of Peter.’ That is not a threat to the faith.”

“We live in a very suspicious age,” the bishop, who is a president-delegate to the synod, said. “I have no worry about that.”

Mpako also said a conspiracy “does not connect with reality as I know it.”

“I think the desire for a more synodal Church that encourages participation by all is something that many of us have been calling for,” he said. “We have already fertile ground for that [in Africa]; we have been practicing for that.”


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Catholic News Agency 12507 Articles
Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

6 Comments

  1. A reassuring explanation why we have such diversity on what is good and what is evil, since that requires a diversity of dicastery management, those with holy orders, others with unholy orders, hierarchy infused with synodal musing all under the watchful eye of a chair of authority. Got it.

  2. Ask yourself this question:

    Why in heaven’s name would he say that if the synod did not pose a danger to the nature of the Church?

    Why would such a thing even occur to him?

  3. An ambivalent proposition: “synodality must coexist with the hierarchical structure of the Church.” Especially if left to discernment by two-minute sound bites tabulated and summarized by “experts”…

    In olden times such “coexistence” was pioneered by some guy named Arius. His discussing/ questioning—of how much the Son resembled the Father, or not—exposed the Church to the possibility of many other reductionist revelations, past, present and future. A restoration of pagan polytheism was knocking at the cathedral door…

    So, about a synodal/polyhedral Church coexisting in some way (or many?) with the “hierarchical communion” of the Church (Lumen Gentium), we might at least recall the Arian bishop Eusebius (not the historian by the same name) and how he cleverly refined the endgame of the more explicit Arius.

    Declining the myopia of amnesia, we read from history:

    “It has thus been observed with respect to Eusebius that ‘his mentality was, at bottom, that of Arius. But whereas the latter was clear and precise in his formulations, the bishop of Caesarea excelled in enveloping his ideas in a cloud of words [!] and in saying much in order to say nothing’[!]” (Charles Norris Cochrane, “Christianity and Classical Culture,” 1940/1974, incomplete fn. to Duschesne).
    Compared to the former “cloud of words” used by Eusebius, is the Instrumentum Laboris any different as it clouds its pages with circumlocutions? Even floating the self-validating term “synod” some 382 times? And, with Pachamama niched in St. Peter’s Basilica to coexist(!) with the sacramental Real Presence!

    Butt, instead of dissolving the nature and unity of the divine Incarnation…is the novelty today to dissolve the nature and unity of Man himself, predictably by parasites from within?

  4. The cardinal claims orders are unnecessary for office. If he had any sense of honor he would resign his post. If Francis had any sense of catholicism, he would excommunicate the man for such teaching. He would first exile the man AND walk with him in his journey.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*