“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you walk,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
“We thus come to the second point, which is the need to develop a theology of synodality.”
— Pope Francis, “Address of the Holy Father to the Participants in the Plenary Session of the International Theological Commission” (Nov 28, 2024)
Days after the conclusion of the nearly month-long October gathering on the Synod on Synodality in Rome, the talk and focus shifted to “the synodal process as it moves into the ‘reception’ or implementation phase.” This is, in case you’ve not been keeping track, the “third stage” of the sempiternal meeting on meetings. Which means, said the synod’s general secretary, Cardinal Mario Grech, that “the stage of celebration ends and the stage of reception begins…”
I suspect many Catholics missed the stage of celebration, a description that sounds rather forced to those of us who have slogged through endless pages of synodal documents, reports, and declarations. But, some say it is historic. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, in a November 12th interview with Gerard O’Connell of Americamagazine, made his case for why the Synod on Synodality is a historical event that will resonate down the corridors of time:
I spoke to the young college students from America who visited Rome during the synod, and I told them that they are going to look back and see this as one of the most historic moments in their lives, for it has redirected the focus of where the church is going. I believe that it’s a historic moment in the life of the church that is going to be celebrated in history.
That said, the 2,000-word-long interview doesn’t offer a case for the Cardinal’s assertion. It is heavy on tired cliches and vague assertions, with dashes of hyperbole in the mix. “The synod’s final document is not a landing strip,” opines Cupich. “It is a launch pad. We’re just beginning. We have no idea how this is going to unfold. This is why this is historic.”
Of course, “historic” doesn’t logically follow from “we have no idea…”, but such language may well be fitting for post-2015 notions of synodality, which are often quisquous and conflicted.
Cupich makes mention of synodal debates about the role of women, “the divorced and remarried and those excluded for identity and sexuality,” and remarks—in one of his few pointed statements—that the “documents of the Second Vatican Council are coming to life.” It’s as if the pontificates of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI—both key figures at the Council—had sought to euthanize Vatican II.
It suggests a perspective both dismissive of those two pontiffs and hubristic to the point of caricature. Consider this question and answer:
I’ve heard from so many people that there’s no going back in the church after this whole synodal process. Is that your view?
I can’t imagine that going back is an option. The Second Vatican Council set us on a new direction. Yes, there were zig-zags, but I’ve always reminded people who were disenchanted that maybe we’re moving too quickly or not fast enough on different things following the council, that the Holy Spirit’s in charge, and this renewal is not going to be thwarted. And I feel that way, too, about this synod.
Who, exactly, has zigged and who has zagged? And who has been thwarting what?
More important than the Cardinal’s feelings is the November 25th “Note of the Holy Father Francis to accompany the Final Document of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops,” in which the Pontiff states the final document is “an authoritative guide for [the Church’s] life and mission.” Furthermore:
The Final Document will form part of the ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter (cf. EC 18 § 1; CCC 892), and as such I ask that it be accepted. It represents a form of exercise of the authentic teaching of the Bishop of Rome, with some novel features but which in fact corresponds to what I had the opportunity to point out on 17 October 2015, when I stated that synodality is the appropriate interpretative framework for understanding the hierarchical ministry.
Seven Considerations
Despite the confidence of Cupich and Company, there are good reasons to question the lasting influence and importance of synodality as it has been presented in recent years. Here are seven points to consider as part of the process of discerning the future of “the path of synodality.”
1) The origins are curious. Synods have ancient roots, as the word “synod” (σύνοδος) essentially means “assembly” or “council.” Vatican II (itself a synod) emphasized the synod of bishops, which is to “give special consideration to missionary activity, which is the greatest and holiest task of the Church” (Ad Gentes, 29). Pope Francis, in 2015, made it clear that he wanted to explore the term and its meaning more deeply (or widely), and in 2018 the International Theological Commission (ITC) released a lengthy study on “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church.” That document sought to ground its approach to synodality in the texts of Vatican II, while admitting “synodality is not explicitly found as a term or as a concept in the teaching of Vatican II” but also asserting “it is fair to say that synodality is at the heart of the work of renewal the Council was encouraging” (#6).
But, Michael Pakaluk noted, “as the ITC points out, communio (Gr. koinōnia) was the operative notion there, as also in the magisterium of Saint Pope John Paul II.” And, as Pakaluk further observes, the focus of koinōnia, in both the documents of the Council and the writings of John Paul II (and Benedict XVI) was holiness. Thus, the “Working Document for the Continental Stage”of the synodal process never mentions holiness, while John Paul II’s 1988 post-synodal apostolic exhortationChristifideles Laicirefers to “holiness” and being holy about seventy times.
2) The ongoing attempt to define “synodality.” From the start, “synodality” has appeared to be an old word in search of a new meaning, to the point that it began to mean nearly anything to anyone. But terms that mean nearly anything you want are doomed to not mean much of anything. Worse, they can be used (or misused) for any number of dubious purposes. Austen Ivereigh, who has written several books about Pope Francis and was one of 26 “experts” who worked for two weeks in creating the “Working Document,” seemed quite pleased in saying, “Process, after all, is the point of a synod on synodality, and it is where the document breaks important new ground by harvesting and giving expression to the desire in the reports for a synodal way of proceeding.”
However, it turns out that synodality is quite a number of things, according to the final report: “the walking together of Christians with Christ and towards God’s Kingdom, in union with all humanity,” “a constitutive dimension of the Church,” “a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform,” “not an end in itself,” “primarily a spiritual disposition,” “the witness that the Church is called to give to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the harmony of love that pours Himself out, to give Himself to the world.”
In an October 2023 Vatican briefing, it was said that synodality is “a new way of being the Church.” As Fr. Raymond J. de Souza remarked last month: “And it turned out that synodality does not mean a ‘new way of being Church’ at all, but actually what the Church has always been.… Definitions of synodality have thus been offered, including everything and leaving nothing out.”
3) The methodology was problematic. For all of the talk of being rooted in sound ecclesiology and conciliar documents, the synodal process of conducting interviews and listening sessions, gathering content, and extrapolating data had an overt quality of a sociological-based search for certain results, utilizing questionable methodology. (And the term “process” was a favorite, appearing 60 times, for example, in the 2024 Instrumentum laboris.) “Empirically,” wrote Mark Regnerus at Public Discourse, in a rather scathing critique of the Working Document, “the vagueness in the DCS is symptomatic of the use of participatory action research, a ‘method’ of sorts that is light on rigor and heavy on fostering social change.” In sum: at best, it was sloppy and unbalanced; at worse, it was purposefully so, in order to steer synodality and conclusions to certain ends.
4) A lack of doctrinal and theological substance. It is curious and, I think, revealing that Pope Francis, at the end of November, voiced “the need to develop a theology of synodality.” This after several years of documents, texts, studies, meetings, two synods, and everything involved therein. It is true, of course, that our theological understanding of everything—God, Christ, the Church—can continually deepen. But the approach taken to synodality, again, has been odd, with numerous ideas and impressions thrown against the proverbial wall, with hopes that something would somehow stick.
5) Where is the Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology? More pointedly, the various documents and related discussions leading up to the October meeting were remarkably few and vague in discussing synodality in relation to Jesus Christ, redemption and salvation, the nature and mission of the Church, and the ultimate/eternal goal. “In other words,” as I wrote a year ago, “in the synodal church, there is a lot of talk about journeying but little mention of the eschatological goal, the telos of it all.” And, as Fr. Robert P. Imbelli pointed out, the robust “Christological and sacramental perspective” found in Vatican II documents is mostly missing in the earlier synodal documents, being filled instead with references to “processes,” “structures,” and “experiences.” The final document, thankfully, is certainly better, and that is no small thing. But why, we must ask, did this multi-year process avoid such essential aspects until the very end?
6) Listening to whom? Dialoguing with whom? The terms “listening” and “dialoguing” became, in some ways, synonymous with synodality. But it was certainly a rather narrow and unbalanced listening. If you had concerns about the role of women in the Church, you were heard; if you had frustrations with the approach out of Rome toward the traditional Latin Mass, you didn’t really matter. If you were homosexual or “trans,” you were assured of concern and compassion being sent your way; it you were a traditionalist or even a communio theologian, the door was probably closed. Personnel is, in fact, policy—and the fact that a Jesuit priest whose work is devoted to homosophistry was a key participant at the October meeting is proof of the agendas at play. As Robert Royal asked: “Why were – and are – groups pushing LGBT+ meeting regularly now with the Holy Father? While Orthodox groups like Courage don’t get a hearing? Again, I think Pope Francis thinks he’s dining with the tax collectors and prostitutes, like Our Lord. But is it similar? The tax collectors and prostitutes repented and followed Him. Is that coming out of these meetings or Fr. James Martin’s Outreach?”
7) What’s new is not good; what’s old has been done better. A key reason I think that this particular version of synodality will fade away is a simple one: all of the various attempts at “new” ideas or “changes” were not new (most have been around since the Sixties and Seventies) and are of little consequence. Women’s ordination is a dead issue and always will be. No reasonable person thinks that “LGBTQ+” folks are being treated badly by the Catholic Church, while recognizing that accusations of “homophobia” and “intolerance” are simply attempts to jettison clear moral teaching about sexuality. The final document, meanwhile, is at its best when it draws upon the actual texts of Vatican II. It certainly could have used more quotations from John Paul II and Benedict XVI (who are each quoted once). Catholics who want to better understand the role of the laity would do well to bypass the report and simply read and study Christifideles Laici; those who are looking for robust writings on the Church and Jesus Christ should delve into the many works of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.
More points could be made. But it is worth noting, I think, that these past several “synodal years” and the recent meeting in Rome have, for the most part, held little interest for most Catholics. And those who have followed them closely—whether “progressives” pushing for women’s ordination or orthodox concerned about possible changes to Church teaching—are united, ironically enough, in their annoyance and frustration. Both believe (logically enough) that there is much to complain about in the “synodal Church.”
But if, as the final document insists, that the “ultimate meaning of synodality is the witness that the Church is called to give to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the harmony of love that pours Himself out, to give Himself to the world,” we can simply note: “Very well—and that has been true from the birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost! What we need now is to actually live out that witness.”
(Note: This essay was published originally on the “What We Need Now” Substack and is republished here with kind permission.)
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.
Thank you, Mr. Olson, for your incisive dismantling of the Dark Vatican’s foray into Synodolatry.
It is thanks to you, to CWR and to similarly serious and orthodox sources, that this historic heretical breakdown instituted by the once Holy See isn’t a greater threat than it is.
The sad fact is, Bergoglio’s papacy will be remembered for its intolerance, its incoherence, and its anti-Catholicism.
Fortunately, your measured assessments of the Bergoglian debacle over the past decade, as exemplified by your Seven Considerations in tonight’s commentary, are serving to inoculate the faithful. You demonstrate for the world to see just how skewed Bergoglio’s “Catholique” project really is.
The Francis papacy reminds me of the current democratic party, they both turned to progressive, to far left away from the Truth. Hopefully as proven in the last election True Catholics will come to know the far reaching progressive nature of the Francis papacy and come to know the Trurh as Jesus taught.
If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples,and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jn.8:32
Amen
A camel is a horse designed by a committee…
The potentially beneficial bonding of distinct sacramental ordination with the broader “universal call to holiness,” this self-destructed when the Synod on Synodality: (1) mistook a town hall meeting for a synod of bishops as successors of the Apostles; (2) allowed itself to be annexed by, or serve as window dressing for, the LGBTQ subculture (as in the facile Fiducia Supplicans); (3) pretended to square the circle between what is doctrinally received and what is supposedly detachable as “pastoral”; and (4) when it pretends to disperse centralized double-speak to the science (!) of Continental Drift—by offshoring the teleprompters to centrifugal “continental assemblies.”
Anthropologically, we either do what we believe, or believe what we do. But, the modernday multitasker and prophet Billy-Boy Clinton signaled a mind-bending (c)hurch with his “it all depends on what the meaning of is, is.”
The clarifying moment will be in 2025 when “Nicaea 1700” is possibly graffitied by the post-synodal Study Group #9 (now editing the grab-bag of “controversial issues”: doctrinal, pastoral and ethical!) as mostly an exercise of “walking together” and inclusivity, rather than as primarily and historically the (“backwardist”) rejection (!) of Arianism.
Exclusivity!—by consistently remembering what has been received and believed and done from the beginning. What the meaning of is, is.
SUMMARY: Amnesia or Anamnesis? Choose one.
Here on the ground, I don’t sense much interest in synodality. Not even awareness.
I agree, Cleo!
And allow me to add that this synod was done during the post-COVID era, when the world was turned upside-down.
I lost my beloved husband of 41 years–he was only 62, and I also lost both of his parents. The world, at least in the U.S., went crazy and was constantly adding COVID safety “rules”, e.g., “mask wearing”–as if those cloth masks made by dear ladies who still have the knowledge and skill to use a sewing machine–would actually stop the virus, but sadly, the cloth masks did little to stop the virus. Or the use of a bottle of hand-sanitizer that did mostly nothing but dry out the hands and make them crack and therefore vulnerable to infection! And staying home from everything–except work if you, like me, worked in a hospital and had to work 14-16 hours a day and 3 out of 4 weekends to make up for all the employees who were staying home with their children because the schools were all closed down. And staying six feet away from fellow human beings, which, of course, justified shutting down schools, churches, theaters (putting thousands of theater professionals like my older daughter out of work), parks, restaurants, etc.–pretty much everything.
Anyone knows that you don’t make big decisions or changes while working through a crisis! I think we are just now getting past–although we are still cautious–the COVID pandemic crisis. Sadly, though, I still see masks (perhaps the wearers suffer from a truly debilitating condition like cancer that makes them vulnerable to infection?) and several of my young relatives have failed to launch and still live at home, have no job, or no plans to get a job and start their adult life–I think they’re still afraid.
And that’s ANOTHER time that you don’t make big decisions or changes–when you’re afraid.
With much respect for the man and for his high office that God has placed him in, I wish that Pope Francis would have waited until now, after COVID, when most of us are recovering or have recovered our bearings, to even start talking about synodality and proposing discussions, study groups, and meetings.
Oh, well. Holy Mother Church will survive and prevail.
Yes, I also thought so until I realized that “synodality” is a label/movement delight to bring to an action, to animate the tendencies which have been present in the Church for some time. I will use a metaphor: take an authoritarian = “patriarchal” but orderly human family. There is no question that cruelty can be present there, total obedience demanded and so on. But there is one good thing: clear rules, especially those clear rules have something to do with the Scriptures. According to developmental psychology, a chaotic family without clear rules and power structure puts children in danger of developing various disorders (why so I will set aside for now). The Church has been such a family, with clear rules and structure. That structure had its problems including abuse.
Yet what we have now as “synodality” is a chaotic family in which parents, especially a mother, make rules as it pleases her. By “mother” I mean a female force present in “synodality” and not a good one that is informed by Christ like the force of St Mary Magdalene for example. “Synodality” declares that clear rules and structure are the source of abuse (they are not; their perversion = the abuse of a power is) so they must be thrown away. Their task is to turn the Church into a chaotic covert narcissistic family with no rules, no truth, no clarity – no anything at all.
This transformation could not be possible if the Church did not have enough people brought up in chaotic families, abused, often with weak or absent fathers. It is a return of a female deity if you like, I am speaking about the spirit. Cupich, PF and others are the sons of such mothers. Not rely on strong mothers, strong in Christ but the mothers who had to compensate for a weakness of their husbands. In my parish there are plenty of such people including priests. They may dislike or not care about “synodality” yet they automatically become a part of it. It is kind of a psychological disease.
The Church missed its chance for a true transformation. It refused to repent the abuse within its walls and to undergo a very painful self-scrutiny. It chose a pathetic covert way of a fake transformation. Imagine a narcissistic head of a family. His abuse came to a light. He refuses to consider it and to change. His wife supports him in his denial. He now pretends that he treats his children differently, not abusing them overtly but covertly. A covert control and abuse are even more effective than an overt. The result? Some children become narcissists, some become disabled because of complex PTSD, some leave the family forever.
Thank you, Carl, for summarizing what I think is the view of a majority of well-informed, practicing Catholics who possess simple common sense. Now, if we could find a way to get your summary into the hands of all American bishops and even the pontiff Francis himself, the eyes of Church leaders might be opened.
“We thus come to the second point, which is the need to develop a theology of synodality.” — Pope Francis, “ This sounds vaguely familiar to something Nancy Pelosi said about the Obamacare bill that Congress would have to pass the bill first before reading it. We certainly do live in Wonderland, Alice.
I would be more succinct. The Synod on Synodality has beeen a massive flop for most Catholics — at least those who have ever heard of it.
Excellent article Mr. Okson.
As you mentioned early on about the synodal celebration stage, I also missed that.
You mentioned the Vatican saying synodality as being a new way of being Church. For some reason that reminded me of a statement by C.S. Lewis, that for every new book that you read you should read an old book. Not that an old book is necessarily better, but that many things that are presented as new are actually old – and disproven.
And finally Mr. Beaulieu, I loved your phrase that the Synod, “mistook a town hall meeting for a synod of bishops.”
The genetic flaw in floundering “synodality” was the front-end neutering of diocesan bishops “primarily as facilitators.” All that has followed is mutation, including the variant “hot-button issues” now to be lab-cultured by ten post-synodal (!) Study Groups.
One is not quite reminded of those front organizations exposed by Bella V. Dodd in her “School of Darkness: The Record of a Life and of a Conflict between two Faiths” (1954). Written after she woke up (sometimes a good term!) to be then converted and baptized by Fulton Sheen. Following a Christmas Midnight Mass, in the book she concludes:
“It came to me as I stood there that here about me were the masses I had sought through the years, the people I loved and wanted to serve. Here was what I had sought so vainly in the Communist Party, the true brotherhood of all men. Here were men and women of all races and ages and social conditions cemented by their love for God. Here was a brotherhood of man with meaning” (p. 236).
A far cry, this, from the self-contradictory disunity of a synodal “new way of being Church.”
A far cry, too, Bella Dodd from, say, Jeannine Gramick and Fr. James Martin, S.J. But, instead of Dodd in the 1940s having used “Negroes as instruments of revolution,” why not more modestly erect the LGBTQ coalition, in the 21st Century, as a church-within-a-Church?
But as it’s worded here: “one is not quite [!] reminded.” Just a fantasy. Because who am I to judge?
Synodality, besides being an absurd invention of several outdated hierarchs, is against our faith, our God IS NOT synodal, he is hierarchical and Jesus made it clear “I give you the keys of the kingdom.” Democracy in the Church is a Lutheran invention that ended in the disaster that we see today in Protestantism. We need Shepherds who guide rightly, not conclaves of sheep dictating guidelines to the Shepherd.
Synodaling is a process to justify sinful practices.
Synodaling is like wearing a big wig at Versailles during Louis XIV.
“Synodality” is a bureaucratic (and thus a caricature) substitute for the true growth of the soul in Christ. Christ is dealing with each willing soul individually, growing it up into the likeness of His own psyche = Person which is both human and divine. No matter where such souls are, they affect their environment. This is “salt of the Earth” which works interindividual, from a soul to a soul. This individual work, of a soul and a heart which bears the Holy Spirit, makes a collective change (in few, many, etc.). It is always driven by the one who is in love with Christ and gets his strength from a personal relationship with Him.
“Synodality” is created by people belonging to a narcissistic spectrum who DO NOT GET that close personal relationship between Christ and a soul. It is like someone who is entirely devoid of understanding of love “explains” a marriage in bureaucratic terms only. In such an explanation a couple, two living people, disappears and “one” and “two” are left on a paper, among thousands and thousands of other indistinguishable “one” and “two”. It is a soulless collectivism. It is a new (perverse) mysticism, a mysticism without Christ and a soul. Speaking clinically, it is a covert narcissism i.e. a narcisisim under the mast of “we” and “for the good of all”.
I would suggest that the synod of Pope Francis is simply an exercise to promote Liberation Theology.
What we really need is a chaplet to help us meditate on the mysteries of Robert’s Rules of Order.
“and the fact that a Jesuit priest whose work is devoted to homosophistry was a key participant at the October meeting is proof of the agendas at play. As Robert Royal asked: “Why were – and are – groups pushing LGBT+ meeting regularly now with the Holy Father?” Exactly. And that he put Cardinal Hollerich in charge who believes the Church needs to change her teaching on homosexuality. He also put Fernandez as head of the doctrine of faith. Sorry, Francis is not following the Holy Spirit. He is working for lobby and agenda.
Who cares about Christians across the Middle East who have been persecuted and driven out by the millions? Who cares about Chinese Catholics who are being indoctrinated by state approved bishops? The Church’s priorities today dumbfound me. Perhaps I am not sufficiently synodized to understand all this.
And still the perennial questions remain: what must I do to be a saint and how will I die as a friend of God! These ARE the important things to reflect upon, not enlarging a metaphorical tent of fantasy that fails to ask that mentanoia of the soul and enjoying the peace of being at peace with the Holy Trinity now on earth and in the world to come!
I suggest that a top synodbasher like Carl Olson juxtapose Synodality with Theosis-Deification. Having written on the latter, Olson can understand that Synodality is not an invention or innovation by Pope Francis as most popebashers always cluelessly and mistakenly shout out loud. Synodality like Theosis-Deification is a theological issue as ancient as the Church, but which was eventually neglected in the Western theological tradition. St. John Chrysostom, one of the Church Fathers, stressed to the point of declaring that “ synod” is the name of the Church, that is that the Church is “syn-odos,” or “walking together.” More than a meeting, a process, or a method, Synodality, to echo Chrysostom, is the Church in its nature, life, and mission. As the Final Document of the Synod on Synodality cites the International Theological Commission, “synodality is a constitutive dimension of the Church” (FD 28). “Synodality denotes the particular style that qualifies the life and mission of the Church, expressing her nature as the People of God journeying together and gathering in assembly, summoned by the Lord Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel” (ITC, Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church 70).
Sigh. Where to start?
First, I’ve been a member of a Byzantine Catholic parish for 25 years, so I have some sense of synodality as it is practiced in the East, having taken part in various meetings with bishops, etc. I’m well aware of the history. And more than a few Eastern Catholics have noted that the post-2015 version of synodality does not always align well with what the Eastern churches have known for centuries.
Secondly, theosis/deification was never neglected in the West, as Called To Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification demonstrates. In fact, correcting that false notion was a key focus of the book, and my friend Dr. Jared Ortiz has gone on to write/edit/contribute to other books further demonstrating this fact. For further evidence, see the recently published, 738-page book The Oxford Handbook of Deification (which is co-edited by an Orthodox theologian, a Dominican, and a Catholic theologian).
Thirdly, I’m well aware of the ITC document (having read it when it first came out) and all of the various synodal documents, all of which make a wide range of claims about what synodality is–to the point (to repeat what I wrote in the essay), a reasonable person concludes that synodality means nearly anything Bob, Bill, and Betsy want it to mean. I don’t take issue with all of the various definitions; rather (again, to repeat myself), it’s that all of this “stuff” has already been going on for decades and/or centuries. And it’s been far better expressed in, say, “Lumen Gentium” and the various writings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Now that I’ve addressed those points, perhaps you could actually engage with what my essay says. Just a thought.
Deacon Dom,
The challenge, as with much that is in turmoil within the Church, is to walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, to Church synods (maybe not a churchy Synodism?), but also this from the ITC, whom you cite, selectively:
“…It is essential that, taken as a whole, the participants give a meaningful and balanced image of the local Church, reflecting different vocations, ministries, charisms, competencies, social status and geographical origin. The bishop, the successor of the apostles [!] and shepherd of his flock who convokes and presides over the local Church synod, is called to exercise there the ministry of unity and leadership [!] with the authority [!] which belongs to him [!]” (n. 79).
The derailment came at the beginning by casting diocesan bishops “primarily as facilitators.”