Synodality isn’t democratic rather it involves ‘grace’ and ‘discernment’, Pope clarifies in newly released comments

Just weeks before the beginning of the second session on the important Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis addressed the issue when speaking to Jesuit clergy during his recent visit to Southeast Asia and Oceania earlier in September. At the time, little if anything about what the Pope had specifically said about Synodality made it into the media and public realm.

But further comments have now been published this week in Italian media La Civiltà Cattolica, and which provide more context and insight into the Pope’s vision of the Church in the future and his thinking in relation to the synod taking place in Rome on 2-27 October.

“The Synod of Bishops was born from an insight of St. Paul VI, because the Western Church had lost the dimension of synodality, while the Eastern Church had preserved it. St. Paul VI, at the end of the Council, created the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops so that all bishops would have a synodal dimension of dialogue,” the Pope is quoted in La Civiltà Cattolica as saying.

“In 2001, I was at the Synod of Bishops. I was collecting the material and arranging it. The secretary of the synod would go through it and say to take out this or that item that had been approved by vote of the various groups. There were things that he didn’t think were appropriate, and he would say to me, ‘No, there’ll be no vote on that, no vote on this.’ It was not understood what a synod was, in short.

“Another issue is whether only bishops or also priests, lay people or women can vote. In this synod, this is the first time women can vote. What does this mean? That there has been a development to live out this synodality.

“And this is a grace from the Lord, because synodality has to be achieved not only at the level of the universal Church, but also in the local churches, in parishes, in educational institutions. Synodality is a value of the Church at all levels. It has been a very good journey. This involves another thing, the ability to discern. Synodality is a grace of the Church. It is not democracy. It is something else, and it requires discernment.”

Several observers on the Synod on Synodality process have expressed concern that it is almost by definition emblematic of the “self-referential” Church that Francis spoke about before his election to the pontificate.

The then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio said in 2013 that the Church is suffering from self-centeredness and “theological narcissism”.

In his speech to the other cardinals ahead of the conclave that would elect him, he said the Church needs to head “to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: The mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery”.

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Previously there has been much comment – and again concern – about the issues being addressed in this year’s Synod, such as increasing the power of bishops’ conferences, allowing women more access to seminaries, and establishing a new “ministry of listening and accompaniment”.

Although Pope Francis seems to have taken contentious issues such as women’s ordination and allowing some sort of recognition of homosexuality off the table, many observers say the synod is too focused on the concerns of Western society, as opposed to the real issues facing the Church in the developing world.

When the Pope spoke to Jesuits in East Timor on 10 September, during the same trip that took him to Singapore, Francis warned against “clericalism” – a concern that has been raised around the Synod on Synodality.

The Pope said clericalism “is everywhere.”

“For example, there is a strong clerical culture in the Vatican, which we are slowly trying to change. Clericalism is one of the most subtle means the devil uses,” he said.

“Clericalism is the highest form of worldliness within the clergy. A clerical culture is a worldly culture. That’s why St. Ignatius insists so much on examining worldliness, the spirit of the world, because our sins, especially for frontier men, will be there, in these spheres; in intellectual worldliness, in political worldliness,” Francis added.

“In my opinion, for you, for us priests, this spiritual worldliness is the most difficult disease to overcome,” he said.

The Pope told another Jesuit that the challenge of the Church “is always not to move away from the people of God”.

“We need to get away from ecclesial ideologies. This is the challenge I leave you with: Do not turn away from the people who are the most precious asset,” Francis said.

It’s been noted that the Pope’s words to his fellow Jesuits during his trip earlier this month, as well as these latest comments being made public, could be a way of getting the Pope’s views over to those who will participate in the Synod on Synodality in October.

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Photo: Pope Francis at the end of the weekly general audience at St Peter’s square in the Vatican, Vatican City State, 18 September 2024. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images.)

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