The second session of the Synod on Synodality is nearing the final stretch. Including last year’s assembly, the 368 delegates have spent nearly seven weeks of their lives listening to each other and the Holy Spirit inside the synod hall. We’ve learned a lot about who they are, the methodology they’re following and the central themes that are emerging. And yet, a number of assumptions continue to float around the synod that are only partially true or largly false.
These assumptions are planted like seeds and repeated just often enough by a handful of synod delegates, lobby groups, the media and Catholic commentators that they have become part of the synod narrative. Having followed both sessions closely from Rome and after speaking with several delegates and other individuals working in and around the synod, I thought it helpful to name and debunk some of these assumptions:
1) “The synod is being manipulated or stage-managed.” We heard this critique before the first assembly even gathered in Rome in October 2023. And it persists. The underlying concern is that the synod, which is touted as a groundbreaking exercise in open dialogue and communal discernment, is progressing toward predetermined outcomes. The suspicion is not of the pope per se or the assembly but of the synod’s leadership team in the general secretariat and the drafting committee for the final document.
This assumption contradicts what the vast majority of delegates have said consistently during press conferences and in interviews over the past year: that they are free to speak their minds and what they say is received. Some of those who suspect the synod is being manipulated are also present in the hall and are free to speak. Beyond that, the methodology of “conversations in the spirit” has revealed that people are unpredictable and do not neatly fall into ideological camps. We tend to think that because someone says one thing about an issue, they will line up on a number of other ideological points. One synod facilitator told me that such preconceived judgments and pigeon-holing have consistently failed to capture the complexity of the experiences and attitudes of delegates around the tables.
Each table freely elects its own rapporteur to bring their contributions to the wider assembly. All of these contributions will need to find their way into a final report, which, this year, will be reviewed and discussed in the final week of the synod before it is voted on by every member. Time will tell if the final report of this second session meets the assembly’s expectations for an accurate reflection of their contributions. But if the paragraphs in the final document pass with significant majorities, as they did last year, the assumption of manipulation may finally be put to rest.
2) “Our church is already synodal.” Many churches in places like the United States have diocesan pastoral councils. Churches that don’t are listening and realizing that such councils can be truly effective ways of increasing the participation of the laity in decision-making, working transparently and holding ourselves accountable as a local church.
One concrete proposal that seems to have gained consensus in the synod hall is a call for mandatory diocesan pastoral councils. But there’s a temptation on the part of the churches where these are established to assume that because we already have them, we are already a synodal church. This assumption is only partly true and, for that reason, if it’s not confronted, could do real harm to synodality. Yes, churches in places like the United States have organically developed synodal elements, like diocesan pastoral councils.
But synodality is not a structure or proposal; it’s a way of being church. An established diocesan pastoral council can operate in a decidedly un-synodal way. In other words, the specific proposals made in the forthcoming final document should not be interpreted as an official stamp of achievement of synodality in a few particular churches. Becoming a synodal church will require much deeper spiritual work and conversion in every particular church.
3) “Synodality is a fad of this pontificate.”Pope Francis is indeed all-in on synodality. My colleague, veteran Vatican reporter Gerard O’Connell, and others have argued that synodality will be Francis’ lasting legacy. But others see it as a fad of this pontificate that will come and go with him. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I want to highlight one very particular feature of this second synod assembly that pushes back on this assumption, namely the grounding of synodality in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
[The history of synodality: It’s older than you think.]
Practically every public-facing event of this synod has referenced, quoted and developed ideas from the council. In his opening address to the synod, Pope Francis defended his decision to include non-bishop participants as full voting members, declaring, “I acted in continuity with the understanding of the exercise of the episcopal ministry set forth by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.” At the ecumenical prayer vigil on Friday, Oct. 11, we heard powerful quotes from “Lumen Gentium” (Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) and “Unitatis Redintegratio”(Vatican II’s decree on ecumenism) read aloud by some of the Christian fraternal delegates in the synod.
In four public theological forums—a new addition to this assembly—several Vatican II documents were referenced and quoted extensively in presentations on “the People of God” (which is itself a Vatican II articulation of the church), the role of a bishop’s authority, the relationships between local churches and the universal church, and the exercise of papal primacy in relation to the synod. In other words, more and more the synod is grounding its work and prayer in the documents of the council.
Long before Pope Francis brought synodality into the collective Catholic consciousness, the church was promoting a “new evangelization.” In many ways, synodality is a continuation and development of the “new evangelization” promoted by Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Back in 2012, as part of that effort, Pope Benedict XVI inaugurated a “year of faith” in which he insisted that “the new evangelization…needs to be built on a concrete and precise basis, and this basis is the documents of the Second Vatican Council.” Ironically, those who see synodality as a fad of Francis’ pontificate seem to miss the fact that it is doing exactly what Pope Benedict called for. In a sense, to assume that synodality is a fad of Francis’ pontificate is to also assume that the ongoing implementation of Vatican II is a fad of Francis’ pontificate.
