A synod on synodality risks being self-referential
Catholic Herald, 12 March 2020
The seventh anniversary of Pope Francis (March 13) falls at a time when the pontificate’s agenda has run into difficulty on two key issues – synodality and curial reform. The first appears to have turned in on itself, the second disintegrated into something of a shambles.
Soon after his election Pope Francis put the Synod of Bishops at the heart of his programme. He announced not one, but two, synods on the family to be held in 2014 and 2015. The purpose of the synods would be to relax the Church’s discipline regarding Holy Communion for the civilly divorced and remarried. Cardinal Walter Kasper explained as much in February 2014. Two years later came the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
But the family synods did not bring consensus as much as division and confusion. Two more synods followed, on youth in 2018 and the Amazon in 2019. But even this last, carefully prepared with only a select group of regional bishops, did not bring concord to the Church but a global controversy.
When Querida Amazonia was released last month, the synodal aftermath resembled that of four years ago. Then conservatives were destabilised by Amoris Laetitia; the same was true of progressives this time.
The upshot is that four synods in less than six years have brought the opposite of what was intended. The more Pope Francis spoke of making room for the Holy Spirit, the more bureaucratic manipulation came to the fore. The more the Holy Father insisted that the synod was not a parliament, the more factions developed. This pontificate stressed going out to the peripheries; the synods drew vast amounts of energy to intra-ecclesial disputes.
So when it was announced on March 7 that the next synod in 2022 would be on “synodality” itself, there was a sense of a once bold idea now exhausted. The synods have not been a spur to evangelical activity looking outward, but rather occasions of internally fixated discord. Now a synod on synodality itself threatens to lock the entire Church in the sacristy discussing how to order internal affairs.
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