Synodal myopia in light of synodality in the family and apostolates

This essay is occasioned by (1) the conclusion of the first session of the Synodal Assembly (October, 4–29, 2023) on the theme “For a Synodal Church. Communion, Participation, Mission,” marking the beginning of an interim period of further study and reflection on the nature of synodality,¹ and (2) several recent remarks about synodality by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, Bishop Daniel Flores, of Brownsville, and Archbishop Timothy Broglio, current president of the U.S. bishops’ conference.

Taking recent statements by the above prelates as starting points, this essay raises questions regarding certain assumptions about synodality and a resulting theological and institutional myopia that isolates synodality from a number of ecclesiological truths and disciplines to which it is related. By identifying these truths, taken from Vatican II, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, and discussing how they relate to synodality, this essay hopes to contribute to the call from the first session of the synod on synodality for further reflection on synodality in light of Vatican II² and for making judgments about its realization in the Church in the U.S.

It is hoped that it will contribute to the clarification of the nature of synodality, its status as an essential property of the Church, and how, because participation in communion and mission admit of degrees, so also does participation in synodality and synodal events.

Considerations on institutional myopia occasioned by Cardinal Pierre’s remarks

In a recent interview,³ Cardinal Pierre expressed surprise that the U.S. bishops had so little knowledge of the synodal experience of the Church in South America. He stated that South America “is the only continent that has made such a synodal process.” He described his discovery of the newness of the Aparecida Document (2007), which was the fruit of this process: “I read it, and I said, ‘My God, this is new! The bishops finally have developed a pastoral plan which is the result of their synodal approach.’ The fruit of Aparecida is a new pastoral approach.”

Impressed by the fact that then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, was president of the writing commission assigned to produce a document on “‘the difficulty to transmit the faith from one generation to the next’ in a new cultural context,” Cardinal Pierre averred that to understand Pope Francis one needs to understand Aparecida. The interview continues:

“The reality is that behind the vision of the pope there is Aparecida. Bergoglio is not the inventor of that approach. The Holy Spirit inspired this synodal approach at Aparecida.” “Six years later, Bergoglio was elected pope by the grace of the Holy Spirit,” he said. “That’s my faith. And the new pope followed in the footsteps of Aparecida.”

The Cardinal tells us that when he became apostolic nuncio to the U.S. (2016), he “was astounded that many of the bishops [in the U.S.] didn’t know what had happened in Aparecida. They did not know that ‘Evangelii Gaudium,’ the first document of Pope Francis, was rooted in Aparecida.… They didn’t know … that the whole South American church had made a tremendous effort of synodality.”

The “new pastoral approach” of Aparecida Document is its “synodal approach.” Cardinal Pierre described it this way:

the bishops said the church and society have changed, and the transmission of the faith is not done through the culture as in the past, so we have to provide new opportunities and ways for people to have a personal encounter with Christ through a church that is fitting to the new society, a new way of being Catholic. This demands a readjustment of the pastoral approach, which is very difficult to do because people are, we all are, set in our views, in our ways of preaching and organizing.

There is certainly nothing new in this description of the need for new approaches to the transmission of faith and new ways to promote personal encounter with Jesus Christ in the context of post-Christian cultures. In fact, his is an apt summary of the pastoral orientation of Vatican II—40 years prior to Aparecida. The whole movement of the New Evangelization—championed by John Paul II, begun by Paul VI, and continued and to some extent institutionalized by Benedict XVI—has quite simply been to implement the Council. It is safe to say that Vatican II and the synodal approach of the Church in South America have the same historical context—the collapse of a previously supportive Christian culture—and the same goal—a revitalization of the Church’s mission. Certainly, Francis, his principal protagonists of synodality, and theologian enthusiasts of synodality are in accord in seeing in the synodality movement a new phase in the implementation of Vatican II.⁴

Cardinal Pierre sees the Holy Spirit at work, both at Aparecida and in the election of Pope Francis, who takes the implementation of Aparecida’s synodal approach at the universal level as his mission. Such an elevation to the world-wide Church of a pastoral approach of one episcopal conference starkly contrasts with Vatican II and the post-Conciliar continental synods conducted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. These two popes were active participants in the ecumenical synod called Vatican II, regarding which the activity of the Holy Spirit is a settled matter of Tradition. If the hand of the Holy Spirit can be perceived in the election of Pope Bergoglio and his commitment to implement Aparecida, it is a fortiori seen in the election of Cardinals Wojtyła and Ratzinger to implement Vatican II. Their approach was to oversee the implementation the 21^st ecumenical synod by discerning with and guiding local or regional Churches how best to translate the Council’s teachings into new pastoral initiatives and approaches required by the collapse of the cultural supports of former Christendom and appropriate for the cultures and pastoral challenges of those Churches.

The Cardinal’s summary of Francis’s approach appears to be the reverse: prescribe for the universal Church what was, presumably, fruitful for a continental Church. Such an approach sharply contrasts to the way that John Paul II offered to the Church the fruits of his experience with the millennial celebration of Christianity in Poland. In 1983 he encouraged the bishops of America to begin a novena of nine-years of preparation for the 500^th anniversary of Christianity in the New World. Though it is possible that others acted on this, I am aware of one bishop who did, namely, Archbishop Stafford of Denver. With Tertio millennio adveniente (1994), John Paul made another invitation, this time to the universal Church, and thus to all local Churches, to prepare for the Jubilee Year 2000. His collaborators produced study materials for this time of hopeful anticipation and preparation for the celebration of the 2,000^th anniversary of Christ coming into the world. The emphasis was on doctrinal penetration, which was also the first element of the logic of the renewal of Vatican II. It was left to the discretion of conferences of bishops and individual bishops whether and how to accept the invitation and to follow the provided study guides on the Church’s faith in the Trinity, the sacraments, and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity—all presented in keeping with the pastoral magisterium of Vatican II, that is, with biblical, liturgical, and ecumenical emphases.

Cardinal Pierre’s remarks comport with the widespread view among synodality enthusiasts that the way forward in implementing Vatican II is by way promoting a greater awareness and exercise of synodality. My view is that to identify the synodal approach as the key to a new stage in the Council’s implementation, or reception, is myopic. Regrettably, this also divides Francis and his predecessors, implying that John Paul and Benedict missed that the extension of synodality beyond the meetings of bishops to encompass the whole Church is such a vital element for implementing Vatican II. Despite their being actual participants in the synodal proceedings of Vatican II, John Paul and Benedict appear as somehow reluctant to unleash the full potentiality of synodality and thus defective in their interpretation and implementation of Vatican II.

John Paul and Benedict, like Paul VI before them, were concerned above all with faithfully executing their office of responsibility as the “perpetual and visible principle and foundation of for the unity of faith and communion.”⁵ They acted on the conviction that unity in the doctrine of faith calls for, and is in no way attenuated by, the inculturation of faith in diverse social milieux, with corresponding diversities of pastoral priorities and approaches. They acted, in other words, according Vatican II’s clear affirmation that

within the ecclesiastical communion, there are lawfully particular churches which enjoy their own proper traditions, while the primacy of the see of Peter remains intact, which presides over the universal communion of charity and safeguards legitimate differences while taking care that what is particular not only does no harm to unity but rather is conducive to it.⁶

The primary concern of John Paul and Benedict was with doctrinal integrity. They expected and supported the prudential, pastoral initiatives of their brother bishops regarding structures, processes, and methods in the practical order—which today fall under the heading of synodality—so long as there was no attenuation of doctrine.

Archbishop Broglio’s contrasting view of synodality

Archbishop Broglio made an important point when he drew attention to the reality of a rich tradition of synodality in the United States. He “used his address to highlight ‘the many synodal realities that already exist in the Church in the United States,’” among which: “The collegial atmosphere that characterizes these assemblies [of the bishops], the excellent consideration and interaction that typifies the work of the National Advisory Council, the work of diocesan pastoral councils, presbyteral councils, review boards, school boards….”⁷ He could have included the diocesan senate of priests, the experience of religious in chapters of their orders, bishops’ experiencing friendships among themselves in small support groups, and other manifestations of the spirit of synodality.

Such expressions of the spirit of synodality should come as no surprise. Nor should it surprise that such expressions are found among those members of the Church whose maturity in faith entails a zeal for souls and an impulse actively to promote some aspect of the Church’s mission. They know that together they can achieve more than they could acting individually. So, they come together to discern needs and opportunities for service, and to assess the gifts, or charisms, and their coordination, required for an effective apostolic initiative. Vatican II calls this the group (or associative) apostolate.⁸ When the faithful come together for the sake of the apostolate, they exercise the synodal trinomial of see, judge, act,⁹ which became widespread through the work of Joseph Cardijn and the Young Christian Workers.¹⁰

In the language of synodality, members of associations for the apostolate engage in a communal reading the signs of the times in light of faith (whence the importance of doctrinal formation) in order to establish pastoral priorities and strategies, and then to implement an agreed upon plan of action. Put another way: the bond of communion in faith, hope, and charity is activated in a particular way when disciples of Christ gather to discern how best to respond to the indications of God’s will that become known through a joint act of missionary prudence. This synodal process is, in a fundamental way, quite natural, and I will return to this later.

It would also seem to be an activity for which people in the United States are well disposed, even acculturated. Long ago, Alexis de Tocqueville observed the penchant of Americans to come together in what he called associations. “There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand types-religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute.” And, “if they want to proclaim a truth or propagate some feeling … they form an association. In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government … in the United States you are sure to find an association.”¹¹

For U.S. Catholics, this cultural habit is on display in the proliferation of associations for the apostolate. The foundation of such associations is the full, conscious, and active participation in the Church’s life and mission of their members. Synodality is everywhere to be seen, if one has the eyes to see it, among members of apostolates, in all of their common prayer, meetings and discussions for common discernment, and coordinated apostolic action. To name just a few better known associations for the apostolate, think of: Knights of Columbus, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Legion of Mary, Apostolate for Family Consecration, FOCUS, Word on Fire, NET Ministries, St. Paul’s Outreach, Augustine Institute, Catholic Answers, Ignatius Press, Prolife Across America, and Relevant Radio, as well as the many Catholic schools, colleges, and universities. The members of these apostolates have accumulated extensive synodal experience and possess a great deal of synodal wisdom.

The Holy Spirit of charisms and subsidiarity

The missions of such associative apostolates are focused. This is due to their charismatic nature. They do not attempt to respond to all of the challenges facing the Church’s mission, but only that part to which they have discerned a call and related gifts. Since love is as concrete as the individuals and groups who need to be loved, so must the Church’s mission and the synodal deliberations ordered to its effective execution be concretely focused. By bestowing His gifts to meet the needs of the Church’s mission, the Holy Spirit champions the principle of subsidiarity.

This should be kept in mind when evaluating synodal events that are more comprehensive in nature, such as diocesan synods and the current synod on synodality for the universal Church. The more comprehensive the mission, the more difficult it is for the outcome of a synod to produce specific pastoral priorities. The risk, both psychological and practical, is a final document that is little more than a list of stated concerns. As often happens, for the sake of affirming the value of all participants and in order to make everyone feel having been heard,¹² it will be difficult to exclude anyone’s stated concern for fear that the person will feel excluded. In a culture where Christian charity is thought to require universal inclusion, it can be tempting to think of synodal events as instruments to this end.

In reality, associations of the faithful, based on a focused mission and corresponding gifts among members, cannot be all-inclusive. St. Paul conveys this in his teaching on the various members of the body, each making its own unique contribution for the good of the whole (1 Cor 12). It is certainly advantageous to bring the various members together in order to address issues that concern the whole body. But the point is that the quality of this kind of synodal event will depend on the level of engagement and the related experience and wisdom of the participants. Those who are actively engaged in particular apostolates bring that experience and wisdom in a way that those who have not been actively engaged cannot. Further, no one part of the body is equipped to oversee the totality of this good of the whole. That is the function of the head, from which all the other members take direction.

The preceding points to the challenge of a synodal event that is too broadly defined. Its outcome or final document is bound to be little more than a repetition of general principles, which should already be well-known. Related to this, and most seriously, precisely because doctrine provides the foundational principles of all pastoral action, there is a risk that a synodal event that is too broadly defined become a referendum on certain doctrines. Moreover, the theological notion of representation needs to be clearly distinguished from the common notion of representative democracy. Bishops do not represent the faithful of the Church entrusted to them as elected officials represent their constituents. Nor do they represent the episcopate, as if it were just one constituent group within the Church. Rather, they are ordained to represent Christ, the Head of the Church, to the faithful entrusted to them, and they can be said to represent these faithful because of the vital connection of the Head with His body. It is difficult to see how the unique place of the gift of apostolic authority enjoyed by the apostles’ successors can be safeguarded and appropriately expressed in a synodal process that assigns the right to vote to all participants.

One might reply to the above warning that broadly participated synodal events become forums on doctrine by pointing out if the laity are excluded from participation in such synods they are excluded from having any say in the determination of doctrine. But this is not so. First, bishops are initiated into the faith and catechized by their parents. No one has a greater influence on their formation and faith and their participation in the sensus fidei. Second, priests and bishops ought to know the minds of their faithful very well through normal pastoral interactions with them: before and after celebration of sacraments and funerals; collaboration with various committees or organizations (which are actually synodal in nature); pastoral counseling; etc. Third, today’s bishops have ample experience in working with the lay faithful as close collaborators (staff) and members of their pastoral and financial councils. Fourth, what bishop is not aware of the views and concerns of the lay faithful as a result of mail (traditional and of the e-type) and numerous publications (traditional and of the digital type)?

The anthropological foundation for synodality

At the recent meeting of U.S. bishops, Bishop Flores pointed out that the Latin term, conversatio, covers much of the same semantic range of meaning as communio and communicatio. Conversatio signifies those actions that express communion, or friendship, that typify the way that friends interact with one another.¹³ Synodal events are one vital manifestation of the supernatural conversatio among disciples of Christ. Synodality is that form of conversatio by which communion expresses itself in joint participation in discerning pastoral priorities and how best to coordinate various gifts or charisms for the sake of the advancing the Church’s mission.

To say that the Church is a communion is to say that it is a supernatural society unified by supernatural friendship in Christ, that is, charity. Following Aristotle, St. Thomas saw in common life a distinctive sign of friendship. He also considered the friendship of husband and wife is the most perfect kind of friendship. Building on this, let us take note that spousal friendship is fundamentally and essentially mission-oriented. It is ordered to the generation of new life, biological life and spiritual. In fact, marriage is a charism, and like all charisms it is ordered to generating faith and building up faith in others.¹⁴ Spouses coordinate their respective gifts for the sake of serving their children by passing on the faith to them. Friends con-spire, that is, they breathe together with the Breath of God in love that seeks to share the fulness of new life in Christ. Christ’s friends imitate Him, and God Himself, by being causes¹⁵ and actually participating in His causality as co-workers and associates in His compassion.¹⁶

Synodality is a property of the supernatural friendship of charity. When friends of Christ unite to assess the possibilities for a joint mission, they are actualizing the Church’s synodality. St. Augustine insightfully wrote that the good in which friends are one is the common, sharable good, and it is not possessed as such unless it is being shared.¹⁷ Synodal events are ordered to an effective and coordinated effort to share the fulness of Christian life in the Holy Spirit. They are the deliberative stage of prudence that precedes and guides an active and coordinated exercise of charisms in response to identified pastoral needs (missions within the great mission).

Notwithstanding the preceding, it seems to be a widespread presumption that there is a deficit of synodality in the Church in the United States. Bishop Flores echoed this when he stated, more generally, that there is a disconnect between communion and mission. My view is that such a disconnect is likely to be an indication that communion—with Christ first, and with one another—has not yet attained the degree of maturity manifests itself in missionary zeal.

In addition, a lament about a perceived disconnect between communion and mission might reflect an overly institutional, and perhaps clerical, way of viewing the Church. Rather than to think that “The Church is a community of charisms,”¹⁸ it can be tempting to think in terms of official ecclesiastical structures, procedures, and initiatives. This leads to the tendency to want to see synodality at work in institutionally discernible ways within parishes, dioceses, and nations and regions, as with the synod on synodality. But is the work of the Holy Spirit, Who is the principal protagonist of synodality, restricted to what becomes visible through official institutional structures? What is needed, in my view, is a more practicable synodality, along the lines of the charismatic dimension of the Church, as above. This is also a more realistic and universal synodality, which is truly open to anyone who is eager to join with others in exercising the Spirit’s charisms for the sake of promoting the Church’s mission.

Of course, such a charismatic understanding of synodality is by no means opposed to the Church’s apostolic nature that is sacramentally realized in the college of bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome. In fact, Vatican II teaches that “Among these gifts [of the Holy Spirit] the grace of the apostles holds first place, and the Spirit himself makes even those enjoying charisms subject to their authority (see 1 Cor 14).”¹⁹ Thus, it makes eminent sense for a bishop to establish an Office for Discernment of Charisms, for “judgment as to the genuineness and ordered exercise [of extraordinary gifts] belongs to those who are appointed leaders in the Church, to whose special competence it belongs, not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to that which is good (see 1 Thess 5:12; 19–21).”²⁰

Drawbacks of an exaggerated institutional view of synodal events

An overly institutional set of expectations regarding the actualization of the Church’s synodality can, and apparently does, at least for some, lead to the conclusion that all the faithful must have some kind of active participation in synodal events convoked and organized by ecclesial authority. Pope Francis and his collaborators have repeatedly insisted on this universality of participation. Besides its practical infeasibility (We hear that 1% of the Church’s members have actually participated in the synod on synodality at its various levels.), this view conflicts with the fact that at any given moment in the Church’s life, many of the faithful are not ready and are even unsuited to this kind of synodal participation.

To assert that some are not ready or not suited will no doubt trigger alarm bells of elitism. In reality, however, there are stages of development along the path of discipleship. Christ did not send out His disciples on mission at the outset of His ministry because they were not ready. In fact, they were not even ready at the end of His ministry of teaching and discipling them. They needed the enlightenment and power of the Holy Spirit, which would come on Pentecost. Jesus’s mission was to form them and to prepare them so that they could repent of having denied and abandoned Him, as Peter did, so that in humility they could be open to the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So, we must ask: How many of the faithful have reached that point of spiritual maturity that enables them to receive the Holy Spirit and to be sent on mission? It does not require a great deal of pastoral experience to realize that many of the faithful are not even aware of their Christian dignity as participants in Christ’s mission as Prophet, Priest, and King, and that many more are not yet at that point of so defining their lives in terms of being Christ’s disciples that they are able to bear witness to Him in word and deed. And, since participation in synodal events is ordered to mission, it follows that those who have minimal awareness of their Christian identity and the mission it entails simply are not suitable as participants in associations for the apostolate. The hope is that they will be one day. And that hope will be realized through a deeper conversion by which they more closely follow Jesus Christ.

The preceding invites a consideration of the sensus fidei and its place in the activation of the Church’s synodality. Synodality and synodal events are defined as common discernment guided by the sensus fidei. The Church’s law identifies personal qualities required for active participation in the synodal institution of pastoral councils. Participants must be “members of the Christian faithful outstanding in firm faith, good morals, and prudence.”²¹ Because the sensus fidei develops with the growth of faith²² and thus “to the extent in which [the faithful] fully participate in the life of the Church,”²³ those who do not exhibit these qualities should not participate in synodal events. Universalization of participation disregards the Church’s accumulated pastoral wisdom, stretches the notion of synodality beyond recognition, and makes untenable assumptions about the sensus fidei. Synodal events for discernment presuppose a discernment regarding those who are qualified to contribute to such discernment.

Another reason for insisting on certain personal qualities as prerequisite to participation in synodal events is that synodality is ordered to the effective exercise of the Church’s mission. But missionary zeal is a property of mature charity, and it is simply the reality that not all of the faithful have reached that level of ardent charity. If universal participation in synodal events is the aspirational goal, then we need to assure that “all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness.”²⁴ For, “Charity is the soul of the holiness to which all are called.”²⁵ The promotion of holiness is the key to the authentic implementation of Vatican II and to effective synodality. Holy men and women are responsive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, Who is the principal protagonist of the new evangelization, which is the very purpose of Vatican II. Holy men and women know how to listen to one another, and how to speak boldly (with parrhesía). This is why, “Men and women saints have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult circumstances in the Church’s history.”²⁶ So, let the people encounter Christ, let them be transformed by His merciful love, and then let them pray and study and establish Christ-centered friendships. In due course, the Holy Spirit will invade them with a missionary zeal, which spontaneously arises as charity increases.

The logic of renewal entails a logic of synodality and synodal participation

Is there a disconnect between charity-communion and charity-mission? In principle, no. Charity is both communion and mission. Mission is charity in service to others. A shortfall in one is a shortfall in the other. In reality, the increased sense of a need for more conscious and active participation in mission, which is most certainly a great gift of the Spirit and sign of the times, risks creating a myopia that obscures the relation of mission to communion. Communion with God and with one another is the source and cause of mission, while extending communion and thus participation in mission is the goal of mission. John Paul II put it this way:

We return to the biblical image of the vine and the branches which immediately and quite appropriately lends itself to a consideration of fruitfulness and life. Engrafted to the vine and brought to life, the branches are expected to bear fruit: “He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (Jn 15:5). Bearing fruit is an essential demand of life in Christ and life in the Church. The person who does not bear fruit does not remain in communion: “Each branch of mine that bears no fruit, he [My Father] takes away” (Jn 15:2).

Communion with Jesus, which gives rise to the communion of Christians among themselves, is an indispensable condition for bearing fruit: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). And communion with others is the most magnificent fruit that the branches can give: in fact, it is the gift of Christ and his Spirit.

At this point communion begets communion: essentially it is likened to a mission on behalf of communion. In fact, Jesus says to his disciples: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide” (Jn 15:16).

Communion and mission are profoundly connected with each other, they interpenetrate and mutually imply each other to the point that communion represents both the source and the fruit of mission: communion gives rise to mission and mission is accomplished in communion.²⁷

The logic of renewal for revitalization of mission and thus for effective synodality is to pursue communion-holiness as the essential end of the Church. This will bear the fruit of conversion into missionary zeal and thus the need for effective practice of synodality through a rich variety of synodal events corresponding to the great many vocations and related charisms in the Church.

This was precisely the pastoral concern that moved John XXIII to convoke the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. He laid out the logic of the Council’s renewal in his opening speech. Starting with what he called a new doctrinal penetration, the Church will renew herself by a more perfect witness to that fulness of life that is simply that doctrine lived. This, in turn, will attract other Christians and all human beings to the splendor of holiness and unity. Paul VI developed this more systematically in his first encyclical Ecclesiam Suam and his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii nuntiandi. Faithful to this inheritance, John Paul II and Benedict XVI developed their theology of the new evangelization. First, renewal always begins with a deeper understanding of doctrine. Second, this deep understanding results in conversion, or metanoia, as Christ’s disciples are convicted of the need more perfectly to conform their lives to His teaching. Third, the fruit of this conversion is the witness of new life in Christ by the gift of the Holy Spirit and it is that witness (in word and deed) that draws others to Christ.

Thus, the primary mode of mission, that is, the new evangelization, is witness to new life in the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the most profound element of the “renewal of our minds” (Rom 12:2; Eph 4:23) is to reject the old, worldly definition of happiness in order to adhere to Christ’s definition. John XXIII discerned the world’s need—in the century of two world wars and atrocities against human dignity on scales never experienced—for the morality of Christian faith. The crisis of humanity is, essentially, a crisis of morality. John’s hope was that a renewal of Christian life would result in the light of Christ reflecting more resplendently on the Church so that He be the light for the nations. In this way, the Church offers to humanity a hope that corresponds to the great questions being asked about the meaning of life, history, and human dignity. People come to the renewal of their minds, that is, to faith, by being moved by the goodness and beauty and fullness of life of Christians. This is the truth about human life that attracts because of its goodness and thereby respects human dignity and freedom as it enters powerfully but gently into the human heart and conscience. Everyone is called to this mission of witness, which is the foundation of the individual apostolate.

The domestic Church as primary analogate for friendship and friendly synodality

Vatican II taught that the family is the domestic Church and that the unity of husbands and wives constitutes a unique friendship. As friends, spouses spend time meeting, apart from their children, to share information and perspectives about their children and to agree on prudential priorities and coordination of gifts in order to love their children. For their part, children are unaware of these synodal events. They observe their parents in everyday life and are formed by the culture of love that the parents create in the domestic Church.

As in the Christian family, synodality in the family of the Church presupposes the friendship of charity and is ordered to effective coordinated acts of charity. But, it seems to me, there is a risk that synodality is being used as an instrument for generating the friendship of charity when it actually presupposes this bond of friendship.

Certainly, as children develop, parents must find ways to initiate them into the synodality of the domestic Church. This is demanded by the nature of their dignity and its gradual development. This initiation into domestic synodality will most likely take place during everyday events, such as meals, common tasks, vacations, traveling, etc. Objectively speaking, younger children are excluded. This is not due to “parentalism”—to coin a term corresponding to clericalism. Rather, it is a prudent patience until a sufficient degree of life experience and corresponding maturity is reached. From the beginning, parents look forward to relating to their children as friends, that is, as collaborators in fully, consciously, and actively promoting the realization of the mission of the family. In fact, this is the zenith of their parenting, since only in this way are their children truly prepared to be sent out to establish their own domestic Churches.

The fact that the Church is the family of God, and that parishes and dioceses are called families of families, invites us to consider the synodality of the domestic Church as a starting point, or, at least an important source, for understanding the synodality of the Church as the family of God.

From episcopal communion-collegiality-synodality to communion-synodality for all

Pope Francis’s desire and related initiative to unleash the full potential of the Church’s synodal nature is theologically and pastorally sound. The fact that historically the best-known institutional expression of synodality in the Church’s life has been that in which the apostles (Acts 15) and their successors come together in order to address pressing issues concerning the faith, life, and mission of the Church is not restrictive. Rather, it confirms that synodal events are the spontaneous expression of communion-friendship-conversatio in Christ among those with the same vocation and charism in the Church. Francis is right to remind us that Paul VI took the initiative to expand the Church’s synodal experience by establishing the synod of bishops. It is not a mistake to see this as a first step to expand synodal experience for the good of the Church and as an encouragement to explore ways further to expand it.

No doubt, the motive for such an expansion is the desire that all the faithful experience the fulness of supernatural friendship in Christ and its attendant missionary impulse. In the language of Vatican II and post-Conciliar popes, this is called affective communion. It is the bond of communion in a common life among brothers and sisters in the family of the Church. By its very nature, as we have seen in the case for husbands and wives, this interpersonal communion, by its very nature, entails joint mission, which calls for joint discernment in what are rightly called, in an extended sense, synodal events. In the language of Vatican II and post-Conciliar popes, synodal events like this are effective communion.

The critical question that I think needs to be asked is: Are the structure, process, and method of the synod on synodality apt instruments for promoting the expansion of affective and effective communion-friendship among all the members of the Church? Or, are the hopes placed in this model the result of a kind of myopia that takes the Church’s experience of episcopal synodality as the paradigmatic model of synodal experience for the Church, when in reality other models not only exist but flourish and are adapted to the various vocations and related missions within the great mission of the Church?

Synodality, the Aparecida approach, and the perspective of Jesus Christ, Vatican II, St. John Paul II

Following its first session, the synod on synodality should engage in a principled self-inspection, a kind of examination of conscience, in order to purify its functioning and perhaps uncritically examined presuppositions. The criteria for this examination of conscience is the very council it claims to be taking direction from in order to move into a new phrase of implementation. A fresh look at certain teachings of Vatican II that are closely related to the notion of synodality will provide corrective lenses to counteract a myopia affecting the understanding of synodality and its activation in synodal events. A deeper theological understanding of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar popes prior to Francis will assure that the synod on synodality is effectively implementing the Council through its efforts to unleash the full potentiality of synodality for the promotion of the Church’s mission.

A key takeaway from this essay is that all the practical wisdom in the world about efficiency in conducting synodal events (structures, methods, procedures) will necessarily come to nothing unless the participants are themselves filled with missionary zeal that takes the Church’s doctrine as its guide. The Church’s history has known great periods of missionary fruitfulness without today’s understanding of synodality and its extension to include virtually every member of the Church. Nothing institutional or methodological can supply for a deficit of holiness, that is, missionary, or affective, charity-communion. And nothing can replace the only path to such charity, namely, the path of continual conversion from sin into the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. Synodal events, structures, processes, and methods are welcome instruments for the exercise of collective discernment regarding the most effective ways to further the Church’s mission (effective communion-charity), but by definition such instruments presuppose the missionary zeal that they are intended to serve.

To focus on renewal as conversion into more perfect charity and missionary zeal is not only a way to assure continuity with and fidelity to Vatican II. It is also the best way to follow Francis’s call to missionary conversion in Evangelii gaudium, which is inspired by the Aparecida Document. If my tabulations are correct, the latter quotes or refers to John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter, Novo millennio ineunte, more times than any other source. And, the majority of those are from the sections that emphasize holiness and the spirituality of communion as the path to follow in implementing Vatican II for a new evangelization. Since article forty-three of Novo millennio ineunte is quoted or referred to most often, it can be reproduced here:

43. 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.

But what does this mean in practice? Here too, our thoughts could run immediately to the action to be undertaken, but that would not be the right impulse to follow. Before making practical plans, 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. A spirituality of communion indicates above all the heart’s contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us. A spirituality of communion also means an ability to think of our brothers and sisters in faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body, and therefore as “those who are a part of me.” This makes us able to share their joys and sufferings, to sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine friendship. A spirituality of communion implies also the ability to see what is positive in others, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God: not only as a gift for the brother or sister who has received it directly, but also as a “gift for me.” A spirituality of communion means, finally, to know how to “make room” for our brothers and sisters, bearing “each other’s burdens” (Gal 6:2) and resisting the selfish temptations which constantly beset us and provoke competition, careerism, distrust and jealousy. Let us have no illusions: unless we follow this spiritual path, external structures of communion will serve very little purpose. They would become mechanisms without a soul, “masks” of communion rather than its means of expression and growth.

Next most often quoted are articles forty-nine and fifty, where we read that the communion (or supernatural friendship) that the Church’s members enjoy among themselves “of its nature opens out into a service that is universal; it inspires in us a commitment to practical and concrete love for every human being. This too is an aspect which must clearly mark the Christian life, the Church’s whole activity and her pastoral planning.” The world of the third millennium will be judging the Church based on “to what length of dedication the Christian community can go in charity towards the poorest.” But Christ, too, will be judging the Church, according to the criteria He Himself set forth in His teaching on how our acts of charity in behalf of the hungry, thirsty, estranged, naked, sick, and imprisoned are done to Him. “By these words, no less than by the orthodoxy of her doctrine, the Church measures her fidelity as the Bride of Christ.”

The text continues with an important reference to Vatican II:

Certainly we need to remember that no one can be excluded from our love, since “through his Incarnation the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every person” (Gaudium et spes, 22). Yet, as the unequivocal words of the Gospel remind us, there is a special presence of Christ in the poor, and this requires the Church to make a preferential option for them. This option is a testimony to the nature of God’s love, to his providence and mercy; and in some way history is still filled with the seeds of the Kingdom of God which Jesus himself sowed during his earthly life whenever he responded to those who came to him with their spiritual and material needs.

And it ends with:

Now is the time for a new “creativity” in charity, not only by ensuring that help is effective but also by “getting close” to those who suffer, so that the hand that helps is seen not as a humiliating handout but as a sharing between brothers and sisters.

We must therefore ensure that in every Christian community the poor feel at home. Would not this approach be the greatest and most effective presentation of the good news of the Kingdom? Without this form of evangelization through charity and without the witness of Christian poverty the proclamation of the Gospel, which is itself the prime form of charity, risks being misunderstood or submerged by the ocean of words which daily engulfs us in today’s society of mass communications. The charity of works ensures an unmistakable efficacy to the charity of words.

Concluding confrontations

The new synodal approach that Cardinal Pierre attributes to the Aparecida Document, and thus to Pope Francis, is simply a means directing the creative initiatives of the Holy Spirit working through holy men and women whose missionary charity makes them docile to Him through synodal discernment with one another. It is the goal of missionary activity and the Church’s doctrine, which govern all the means, including synodal processes and events, that are the cure for any synodal myopia that would attempt to make the model of the synod of bishops the normative model for the actualization of the Church’s synodality.

With this in mind, a synodal examination of conscience should include the following confrontations:

Is there an underlying institutional myopia, resulting in an insufficient attention to the role of charisms and related experiences of synodality in associations for the apostolate for the effective promotion of the Church’s mission?

Does the approach of the synod on synodality—which according to Cardinal Pierre, extends to the universal Church the synodal approach of Aparecida—sufficiently account for the concrete inculturation of love in mission?

Will the synod on synodality’s extension of the synodal approach of Aparecida be viewed myopically and thus be isolated from Novo millennio ineunte’s integral relation to Vatican II?

Will the resulting document of the synod on synodality develop a pastoral theology of synodality that is grounded in solid doctrine and ecclesiology, and yet is sufficiently rich and adaptable to be capable of contributing to the renewal and greater efficacy of ecclesial movements and associations for the apostolate, as well as the synodal dimension of the family?

Does the synod on synodality adopt the logic of renewal, which affirms Vatican II’s the pastoral priority of promoting holiness through conversion, reprised in Novo millennio ineunte?

Has the synod on synodality’s insistence that all should actively participate in synodal events confuse universal participation in synodality, including the poor and alienated from the Church, with the universality of missionary love for all, especially the poor?

Does this emphasis on everyone participating in synodal events overlook the practical implications of the reality of diverse levels of maturity and of development of the participation in the sensus fidei among disciples of Christ?

Does the synod on synodality realize that its emphasis on universal participation conflicts with the Church’s own law regarding qualifications for participation in existing synodal institutions, like pastoral councils?

Does an emphasis on synodality emphasize the group apostolate to the point of diminishing Vatican II’s insistence on the primacy of the individual apostolate?²⁸

Has sufficient attention been given to guarding against the dynamics of peer pressure and its strategic manipulation in synodal events, as some bishops have reported experiencing in meetings of conferences of bishops?

The synod on synodality might have had a better start if it had begun by inviting pastors and men and women from among the lay faithful with extensive synodal experience and wisdom to participate, first at the diocesan and then at the national and continental levels, and finally at the universal level. This would include people who have participated in the many officially established institutional modes of synodality (religious chapters, pastoral councils, committees of national conferences of bishops) as well as those whose experience comes from active participation in organized apostolates. It would also include a sampling of husbands and wives, who have stories to tell about their experience of friendly synodality, even if heretofore they have never called it by that name.

The various synodal events would then be a process of sharing and comparing actual experiences of synodality, with a great potential for mutual enlightenment and edification that could be shared with the universal Church. But since a restart is not possible, we should make the most of this interim between the first and second sessions to acquire a deeper understanding of synodality, one that avoids a myopic focus on synodality as one manifestation of the supernatural friendship with Christ in mission to the point of isolating it from other aspects of the Church as communion-friendship.

(Editor’s note: This essay was revised and expanded slightly on Nov. 24, 2023, after its initial posting.)

Endnotes:

¹ “The Assembly proposes to promote theological deepening of the terminological and conceptual understanding of the notion and practice of synodality before the Second Session of the Assembly, drawing on the rich heritage of theological research since the Second Vatican Council and in particular the documents of the International Theological Commission on Synodality in the life and mission of the Church (2018) and Sensus fidei in the life of the Church (2014)” (“A Synodal Church in Mission”. Synthesis Report, 1, p).

² “The entire journey, rooted in the Tradition of the Church, is taking place in the light of conciliar teaching. The Second Vatican Council was, in fact, like a seed sown in the field of the world and the Church. The soil in which it germinated and grew was the daily lives of believers, the experience of the Churches of every people and culture, the many testimonies of holiness, and the reflections of theologians. The Synod 2021–2024 continues to draw on the energy of that seed and to develop its potential. The synodal path is, in fact, implementing what the Council taught about the Church as Mystery and People of God, called to holiness. It values the contribution all the baptised make, according to their respective vocations, in helping us to understand better and practice the Gospel. In this sense, it constitutes a true act of further reception of the Council, prolonging its inspiration and reinvigorating its prophetic force for today’s world” (A Synodal Church in Mission. Synthesis Report, Introduction).

³ “Cardinal Pierre on why the U.S. bishops are struggling to connect with Pope Francis,” America Magazine, November 22, 2023.

⁴ Ormond Rush, for example, states that “Pope Francis’s reconfiguration of the notion of ‘synodality’ is inviting the church into a new phase in the reception of Vatican II.” Synodality, he asserts, “is his catch-all phrase for how he believes the Second Vatican Council is envisioning the Church ad intra—in its inner workings—without wanting to separate the church’s inner life with its effectiveness of its outward (ad extra) mission in the world” The Vision of Vatican II: Its Fundamental Principles (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic, 2019), 543, 545). And Massimo Faggioli, quoting Cardinal Grech in support: “The ongoing synodal process is not only the most important moment in the life of the Catholic Church since Vatican II. It’s also the most important moment about Vatican II, because it’s happening just as hard-to-ignore rifts over the council are emerging in global Catholicism. As Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, recently told Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano: ‘If today, at the invitation of the Holy Father, we are reflecting—and I hope that we will also make decisions—to make the Church more synodal, it is because the Holy Father wants to translate the teaching of the Second Vatican Council into daily life, especially the teaching on the Church, the ecclesiology of Vatican II’” (Faggioli, “Catholicism’s Shrinking Horizons. Addressing the unmet expectations of Vatican II,” Commonweal, March 16, 2023).

⁵ Vatican II, Lumen gentium, 18.

⁶ Vatican II, Lumen gentium, 13.

⁷ Archbishop Broglio, in Michelle La Rosa, “Broglio, Pierre spar on synodality in the US Church,” The Pillar, November 14, 2023.

⁸ See Vatican II, Apostolicam actuositatem, 18–19.

⁹ See Synthesis Report, I, 2, h.

¹⁰ See, for example, the presentation on the website of the YCW organization of Australia.

¹¹ Taken from “The Citizen in de Tocqueville’s America,” Teach Democracy.

¹² Archbishop Fisher of Sydney, a participant in the fall 2023 session, alludes to this in his comments about the limits of the “Conversation in the Holy Spirit,” in his November 20, 2023 letter “Walking Together in Communion, Participation, and Mission. Reflections on the Synod on Synodality”.

¹³ See Emmanuel Durand, “L’incarnation comme « conversation » selon saint Thomas selon saint Thomas d’Aquin: Pertinence sémantique, antécédents patristiques, déploiement théologique.” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 102.4 (2018): 561–610.

¹⁴ See Jerome Quinn, “Marriage, Covenant and Charism”, in America, September 27, 1980, 170–172.

¹⁵ See CCC, 306–307.

¹⁶ See CCC, 2575.

¹⁷ See Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1, 1.

¹⁸ John Paul II, General Audience, June 24, 1992, 9.

¹⁹ Vatican II, Lumen gentium, 7.

²⁰ Vatican II, Lumen gentium, 12.

²¹ Code of Canon Law, c. 512 §3.

²² See International Theological Commission, Sensus fidei in the Life of the Church, 57.

²³ Benedict XVI, Address to the International Theological Commission, December 7, 2012.

²⁴ John Paul II, Novo millennio adveniente, 13.

²⁵ CCC, 826.

²⁶ John Paul II, Christifideles laici, 16.

²⁷ John Paul II, Christifideles laici, 32.

²⁸ “The individual apostolate, flowing generously from its source in a truly Christian life (cf. John 4:14), is the origin and condition of the whole lay apostolate, even of the organized type, and it admits of no substitute” (Vatican II, Apostolicam actuositatem, 16).