THE CALL FOR SYNODS
Pope Francis’ call for a Church-wide synod is likely
to put fear, even dread, into the hearts and minds of some members of the
hierarchy because it opens the door to
raising possible changes and challenges
which have previously been “settled.”
Issues on the local as well as world-wide level
(parish, diocese, episcopal conference, bureaus in the Vatican, Canon Law) are likely to be raised and promoted when the
opinions of the faithful at large are invited.
Segments of God’s people will call for the
re-instatement of the ordained diaconate for women; some will question and
reject Pope John Paul’s 1994 declaration that “the Church has no authority
whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to
be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful”; still others will humbly
suggest that parish congregations should have some input in which priest is
assigned as their pastor.
To many a Church-wide synod is opening a can of worms.
Pope Francis, however, in a 2015 speech at the 50th
anniversary commemoration of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops, said “It
is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the
third millennium,” and his praise for the synodal process was not confined to
the hierarchy.
As the International Theological Commissions study of
synodality in the life and mission of the Church has announced with papal
approval, “The entire People of God is challenged by its fundamentally synodal
calling” (#72 in the Commission’s document).
The Commission met between 2014 and 2017, and
concluded by means of a written vote their approval of the text of their study.
A synod can be described as a Church assembly convoked
“to discern, by the light of the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit,
the doctrinal, liturgical, canonical and pastoral questions that arise as time
goes by” (4).
Now it is the admittedly daunting task of diocesan
bishops to convoke such assemblies as “an
essential dimension of the Church” (42, 70).
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