“I am very pleased with the synod’s final document,” Cardinal Robert McElroy told America’s Vatican correspondent on the afternoon of Sunday, Oct. 27. That morning he had concelebrated the concluding Mass of the Synod on Synodality with bishops and priests from around the world in St. Peter’s Basilica, presided over by Pope Francis.
Cardinal McElroy shared his reflections on the synod in this wide-ranging interview at the North American College, where he resided during the month-long synod. He viewed the synod as a further step in the reception of the Second Vatican Council and said: “It was our sense that this was what we were about in the light of the council. We were taking the principles of synodality that were historic in the life of the church and applying them to the present moment. So it was axiomatic that this is in furtherance of the council.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Gerard O’Connell: You’ve participated in the synodal process that started in October 2021. Now that the synod has ended, what is your main takeaway?
Cardinal McElroy: What began with a foundational process of the universal consultation with the people of God in all the different countries brought in a lot of material, a lot of insights, a lot of contributions of what are the issues in the life of the church. What are the concerns people have? What are the hopes people have? What are the sadnesses people have in the life of the church?
As we moved through those last year, and this year, we saw that two different pathways have emerged. One pathway is the core question of synodality, namely, what does it mean to be a synodal church in mission at this moment in time, understanding that in different contexts and places in the world that means different things, and it will be applied in different ways.
In addressing that question, there has been a series of important milestones. One is the question “What is synodality?” The final document says it in one sentence: “[I]n simple and concise terms, synodality is a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the church to be more participatory and missionary, so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ” (No. 28).
Given that core focus, as we talked through the various topics, [we asked:] “What does this mean? How can this be enfleshed in the life of the church at this moment, given all the different cultural contexts we have?”
I found Part I of the final document, entitled “The Heart of Synodality,” essential because people have struggled to understand what synodality means. It enables people to understand what it means to be a synodal church. This section explains that the basis of all this is baptism.
Yes. At the retreat last year, Father [Timothy] Radcliffe pointed to the baptismal call as foundational for the work that we were going to be undertaking, and all through this document is an understanding that in baptism each one of us is called not just to membership in the church but to responsibility in the life of the church and responsibility, in part, for the mission of the church.
[Synod members] spoke about charisms as the graces of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. Everyone receives charisms. Everyone receives specific calls and grace from God to contribute to the building up of Christ’s vision of what we are to be on this earth and unto eternity. And in the light of those charisms, there are certain ministries—that is, actions we undertake to advance the life of the church. Some of them are formally recognized in the church, some of them more loosely recognized, but they’re all meant to serve the people of God as a whole, and we are all called to enter into them at various moments in our lives.
Both the final document and you now state that some ministries are formally recognized in the church, such as those linked to holy orders—that of bishop, priest, deacon—and others are not so linked, like lector and catechist. But there are other ministries, too, that are not formally recognized as ministries but have stability in a particular zone.
Yes because it is the reality of life in the parish or diocese. There are all sorts, for example, in parish life: people who help with grief ministry for those who die, people who help with the people who are homeless and come to the parish, people who help with persons who are struggling with depression and mental illness so they do not feel alone. These are all ministries. They are not always structured, and people don’t even think of them as ministries, but they are because, in the grace of God, people reach out within the context of life in the church to help others in accord with the Gospel.
The final document recognizes in Paragraph 60 that although more than half of the people in the church are women, they encounter “obstacles in obtaining a fuller recognition of their charisms, vocation and roles in all the various areas of church life.” How do you see the affirmation of women coming out in this document?
I’d say it came out in various ways, rooted in Scripture and our tradition, pointing to Mary Magdalene as the apostle to the apostles. Her pivotal role really was the lead in to the whole discussion of women in the life of the church. The very important assertion was that the majority of the work done in the church is done by women. I believe that is true of basically every culture. It is certainly true in our cultures in the West.
But in the final document, there’s a very important assertion: It says there have been obstacles placed in the way of women effectively ministering as they should be allowed to minister in the life of the church, and in the synodal church we’re going to try to address those and move forward with them. What they’re saying is virtually, with the exception of ordained ministry, they wish to move toward eliminating all gender-based obstacles to women exercising a variety of ministries.
This is a real revolution.
It is a revolution. And, also, what’s important is there’s a task force set up in terms of canon law to try to reform those obstacles, to identify them, which are sometimes obstacles against laity in general, and to try to remove those so that the ministries of the church can be freer, fuller and more robust.
Would you say that the paradigm that has inspired this has been “Praedicate Evangelium,” the constitution on the reform of the Roman Curia, in which Pope Francis separated the power of orders from that of governance?
Yes! But also, what is very interesting is that in all the discussions we had last year and this year in small groups and among ourselves, the presence of women in the assembly was a very important element of this synod, which makes it different. They are witnesses to this reality sitting with us as we’re discussing this. I was really pleased by the breadth in the world of the desire to remove obstacles to women to wide-ranging ministries in the church that heretofore would not have been allowed or encouraged.
At the same time, No. 60 drew the most negative votes. Was this because it raised the question of the diaconate for women?
The diaconate, but also, as John Allen had it today—and I think there’s some truth to it—some people voted against No. 60 because they didn’t feel it had gone far enough. I think the majority that voted against it felt it had gone too far, but some voted against it because they were very unsatisfied at how far it had gone.
Another striking aspect of this document was the emphasis it put on transparency and accountability. This is big because, except in the document “Vos Estis,” which refers to one specific area of church life—the sexual abuse question—accountability has never been spelled out with such clarity as in this final document. Accountability has now become a central plank in the reform of the church.
What was most interesting is, of course, accountability as to the protection of young people needed to be a central tenet of this whole question. It followed logically that financial accountability would be a major element and what that means in the life of the church.
But what was interesting is that it went beyond that to say there’s accountability at all levels for the pastoral action and follow through of what needs to be done in the parish or in the diocese. That’s where this took a new leap. The emphasis in this is on discernment by a group of people who represent the community, a tribunal to discern what the major issues of the parish or diocese are. And when they come to a decision, the pastor or the bishop makes [the decision] in light of their discernment, but then the pastor or the bishop is also tasked with carrying it out, and that carrying it out is part of the accountability, too. That is a very significant thing because it touched on the question of how clericalism clouds that and gets in the way of that kind of accountability.
But the text here really says the people of the parish, the people of the diocese, have a right to ask: “What is happening to advance what we have decided on? What is going on in the life of our parish? Why are you doing things in a certain way?”
I was struck by a statement in the final document regarding consultation and decision-taking, which says that if those in authority, such as a bishop or parish priest, engage in consultation, they cannot simply dismiss the conclusions of that consultation at will, without providing a compelling reason for doing so (No. 91).
There had always been in canon law a provision that you can’t discard a universal, a unanimous finding of a group that you must consult with. This is a broader application of that to say, if the people in the community, in proper discernment, come to a conclusion, you cannot lightly or without accountability take another pathway without telling them this and explaining and having a further dialogue.
What else impressed you at the synod?
One of the things that was most exciting to me during this last meeting of the synod was they’ve set up a series of [study groups] to deal with ongoing issues, and they have made them in a certain way accountable back to the synodal process. There is one that is on complex issues of theology, on controversial questions, that is fascinating because that’s the question of the pastoral method of Pope Francis. [It’s about] understanding where the doctoral tradition comes in and [asking,] what does it mean to place pastoral life at the center of the work of the church?
[In that study group] they’re really doing a very deep foundational evaluation of that question theologically to be able to bring the fundamental insights and teachings of Pope Francis and the theological underpinning of that to our moral theology in general. I think that could be earth-shaking.
At the end of the synod, when Pope Francis said, “I do not feel the need to write an apostolic exhortation,” that was a very strong message to the church.
I understood him to mean, “I don’t feel the need to write a separate conclusion because together we have reached this conclusion in this single process, and I affirm both the validity of that conclusion and that we have walked this journey together.”
How do you see this synod in terms of its relation to the Second Vatican Council in the history of the church?
I think it brings forward a number of the principles embedded in the heart of Vatican II, particularly in “Lumen Gentium” [the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church”] and “Gaudium et Spes” [the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”]. But I think [the synod] is embedded clearly in the lineage of the council and the application of the council and the discernment of what the council calls for in this moment.
It also brings many of those trajectories farther into the heart of the church, in the area of deliberation, decision-making and discernment. It sets up particular structures that had not been established as universal structures that need to be present now at all levels in the life of the church. Giving structure for that will help bring those principles of the council and then synodality itself into the daily life of the church in a deeper way.
The document is really a development of the teaching of the council.
It is [and] in the light of the present moment, too. In light of the present moment and cultures, and I want to emphasize again, in light of there being in that room lay people, in large numbers, who participated and who helped to deliberate on it and had votes on it. That is a difference in terms of taking the council forward.
Could one say that this is a synod of the people of God?
It is not in the technical, canonical sense, but it certainly was so natural to be around the tables and get used to having lay people there who are there fully participating, fully deliberating and voting. It became a natural coalescence of the people of God.
What surprised you at this synod?
When we came back this time for the final session, I did not know where it would go, in the sense that the focus was much more on mission than it had been, and much more on the core processes of synodality and on discernment. I was unsure whether it would be focused simply on process, whether there would be enough substance in terms of structures and goals and mission to make it a multi-dimensional reality. And there was! That’s what pleased me so much.
So you are leaving Rome a happy man?
I am going away very happy. I am very pleased with the synod’s final document.
