Live from Rome, it’s synodality!
The Tuesday Pillar Post
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Hey everybody,
Greetings from the Vatican press office, where I arrived this morning to cover the next 10 days of the Vatican’s second session of the final stage synod on synodality. ;-)
The Pillar’s Edgar Beltran has been here for the first fortnight of this month’s synod on synodality, and when I depart next week, Ed. Condon will be here to cover the final few days. I’ve got the middle stretch, in which — as one synod participant has put it to me already — “nothing’s left but the elephants and the brooms.”
By this, I think my colorful correspondent meant that much of the talking has already taken place, and that what’s coming next will be for the synod’s drafting committee to tweak the draft texts, which will not likely be substantially altered before it’s approved by a series of votes at the synod, and then sent to the pope by the end of this month.
Recall that everything taking place at the synod of synodality is advisory, meant basically to give the pope a set of recommendations for how the Church might better incorporate the notion of synodality — prayerful ecclesial discernment for the common good — into its ordinary life.
All of this takes place with language like “the Gospel as the place of encounter,” and “the concreteness of place in service of communio.”
Also recall that the most publicly controversial issues of the synod have been basically taken out of the process, with the pope kicking the most controversial — discussion about Ordinatio sacerdotalis and calls for the ordination of women — to an outside commission, outside the synod hall.
To be sure, there are still calls for women’s ordination in the synod hall and at the press conferences, and there are outside “lobbyists” pushing the idea. Indeed, today, Cardinal Leonardo Steiner told a press conference that in his Braziian diocese, there are many women exercising diakonia — he called them “deacons” directly — even while acknowledging that such women are not sacramentally ordained deacons.
But while this kind of thing rumbles on, I think we can be fairly certain that the procedural move to formally take the topic outside synod hall means that it won’t feature prominently in the synod document, and that the pope doesn’t want paragraph after paragraph on that topic.
But in truth, I think there is a much more significant debate going on at the synod on synodality, one that some people, including participants, really haven’t seen.
Several years ago, we told you that the really controversial agenda here would be about teaching authority, and its locus. We told you that for all the big neon-lit issues like women’s ordination, there would be a group of theologians arguing that synodality means decentralizing the teaching authority of the Vatican, and allowing episcopal conferences to do more to “develop” doctrine.
This was a quiet but serious point of contention at the conclusion of last year’s meeting, and it’s up for discussion again this week.
The agenda is noted as a “proposal” from some delegates in the synod’s Instrumentum laboris, as a call for the “recognition of Episcopal Conferences as ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority.”
In other words, this is a call for the doctrinal confederation of the Church. Almost this same wording made it into the pope’s own exhortation Evangelii Gaudium back in 2021 and into the first full draft of Francis’ new constitution on the Roman curia Praedicate evangelium — though it was dropped from the final version.
I think this call will end up in the synod’s final document, tucked away amid ruminations on the “journey” of synodality experienced by the Vatican’s synod on synodality participants, and a call for more reflection on the importance of listening, and “conversations in the spirit,” in every corner of the Church.
Most of the concrete proposals likely to be floated are already familiar to Americans — the use of parish pastoral councils, diocesan pastoral councils, more regular consultation with the diocesan presbyteral council, etc. And, in fairness, while those are commonplace in the U.S. States, in some parts of the world, they are far less familiar, and ecclesiastical governance is somewhat more univocal.
Ultimately all of that will boil down to something quite obvious: The pope, a member of a religious community, will call for a more collaborative and fraternal leadership style in the Church’s life, similar to the experience of collaborative governance in religious life.
But embedded in there will be a push — maybe even represented as a minority position — for imbuing bishops’ conferences and continental “ecclesial assemblies” with the authority to interpret or contextualize Catholic doctrine according to local circumstances.
Any reader of The Pillar can see what that would actually lead to. It’s a call to see doctrine subverted by definitive interpretation, by which “hard teachings” need not be accepted in “cultural contexts” critical of them.
That’s bad, in my assessment of the matter. And if the bishop members of the synod on synodality are astute, they’ll push back on it as much as they can.
But whatever they do, I don’t expect that the eventual exhortation on synodality from Pope Francis will take up much of that theme.
I could be wrong, but my thought is that the pope will listen to these voices, then call vaguely for bishops’ conferences to be taken seriously, but stop short of the idea that they have the teaching authority of the pontiff.
Why don’t I think he’ll endorse this idea? Well, Vatican I and Vatican II’s definitive teaching on the munus docendi, for one. And also, the pope’s own growing intolerance with the German synodal path suggests that he won’t want to see a hundred such paths be forged.
But rest assured, the pope’s word won’t be the final one. The idea of doctrinal decentralization is the game plan for the theological debates that will define the experience of the Church in Europe and probably Latin America for the next several decades.
And — if you’re keeping score at home — between now and then, there will be plenty of Vatican press conferences like the one I’m sitting in now.
In attendance at the synod are more than 300 delegates, and, each day, a few of them are brought to the newly renovated JPII Press Room to share their positive experiences of the synod. Some of those people really are interesting, and I’ll hope to bring you some of their stories — especially their lives outside the synod on synodality.
So stay tuned. On matters large and small, I’ll be in Rome covering all things synodality. And I’ll even be right here in the new press room from time-to-time, just in case something actually happens there…
The news
Protestors demonstrated in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly to express their frustration that the ordination of eight transitional deacons has been delayed by the ongoing liturgical dispute in the archeparchy.
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Since Roe vs Wade was overturned, there has been a lot of talk — in the media, online, and in state legislatures — about what should happen when a pregnant woman suffers a medical emergency.
In California, the state’s attorney general is pursuing a case against a Catholic hospital, arguing that the hospital should have performed an abortion when a pregnant woman’s water broke 15 weeks into her pregnancy.
In that case, the woman drove 12 miles to another hospital, where she underwent an abortion.
When The Pillar’s Michelle La Rosa started asking that question, she expected to get a straightforward answer. But it turns out that there are some ongoing debates and internal disagreements among even Catholic ethicists aiming to apply the Church’s teaching to these hard cases.
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In his quickfire Look Closer analysis this week, Luke Coppen breaks down ‘Wir sind Papst’ — a headline that’s been remembered now for nearly two decades, as a condensed expression of Germany’s enthusiasm over the election of its first native son in 482 years.
But you might not know that the headline eventually made its way into a courtroom, amid an engaging intellectual property dispute.
(Here’s a reminder that Look Closer, spun out of Luke’s daily Starting Seven, is a little bit of perk bonus content as a thank you to paying subscribers. And also a reminder that this is good stuff, and a pretty good reason to subscribe.)
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In poll after poll, young people say that one of the obstacles to faith is understanding how to connect scientific knowledge with religious doctrine. It’s a sometimes hard question — I’ve puzzled myself, for example, over how to really understand what we seem to know about the emergence of the human species without what we know about our proto-parents’ incurrence of original sin.
But some serious scientists are insistent that the more work into their fields they do, the more evident God’s existence actually becomes. Michel-Yves Bolloré, co-author of “God: The science, the evidence,” is one such person.
And this week, he talked with The Pillar about the way in which science seems to support the existence of a creator God.
Here’s an excerpt:
There are only two possible theories. One is that the universe was created by a creator God. That is a possibility, it is admitted by many people, we understand it and it is simple: God is almighty, he can create a universe if he wants.
And there is another possibility: God does not exist, we are pure space, time and matter.
It is important to weigh both sides of the scales and see what evidence we have.
In one, for the existence of God, we have the thermal death of the universe, which is a proof that the universe is going to “die,” and that it had a beginning. You have the expansion of the universe and you have the fine-tuning of the universe, which is completely independent from its expansion. Then you have the appearance of life.
Finally, outside of the realm of science, you have philosophy, you have morals, you have history and you even have some miracles.
On the other side of the scales what do we have? Nothing. We have to believe in the “multiverse.”
Give this fascinating interview a read.
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Finally, homeschooling has been in the headlines this month, after The Pillar reported a policy in the Diocese of San Diego which prohibits homeschool groups from using parish property for co-op meetings.
But while we’ve reported thoroughly the policy, and broken down some numbers on homeschooling, we hadn’t yet done much to look at the face of Catholic homeschooling in the U.S.
So last week, reporter Jack Figge did just that — talking with a homeschooling mom, a homeschooled priest, and some practicing Catholics who themselves were homeschooled.
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With that said, I’ve got to run.
Rome, for me, is generally about meeting with friends, resources, and sources, to learn what’s happening, and how to report on it better. Today is a day chock full of that stuff — and I try very hard to make sure that when I come to Rome, I’m spending subscribers’ funds efficiently. Which sometimes means a couple of bowls of cacio e pepe, or non-canned carbonara, every day.
Today it’s already meant having the best Venezuelan food in Rome, with The Pillar’s own Venezuelan, Edgar Beltran.
Please be assured of our prayers. And please pray for us. We need it.
A domini!
JD Flynn
editor-in-chief
The Pillar
I love that as Pillar readers and subscribers we can feel like, “It’s ok, we’ve got a man on the ground.” Like JD, and Edgar, and Ed. are our team representing us and giving us the real scoop in the happenings of the Church. Cheers and God Bless in all your travels!
JD, you ate “cachapa con queso guayanés”, which is deloiious! As a Venezuelan, I agree that Maltín is not very goood. I fail to understand why it is such a national traesure. Next time, try “arepa con carne mechada” and a Frescolita. It is a exceedingly sweet soda but for Venezuelans it tastes of birthday parties, mountain hikes and days at the beach. It certainly tastes much better than Maltín.