Will the pope embrace Vatican synodality?

If Pope Francis wants a synodal Church, he'll likely need to lead by example

Among topics for discussion at the synod on synodality this week are the ways in which the Church can be both authentically hierarchical and make use of synodality itself for better governance and ecclesial life.

Pope Francis talks with delegates Oct. 15 during the Vatican’s synod on synodality.

That topic includes the controversial notions of imbuing bishops’ conferences with “doctrinal authority,” and of developing a structure of “continental assemblies” in which bishops would make decisions about pastoral initiatives for designated multi-country regions.

Those ideas have garnered both supporters and critics among the 368 voting delegates, and the meeting’s final report will likely reflect that. 

There is far more unanimity among the delegates who have spoken with the media about the notion of synodality itself, with seemingly widespread agreement that on the whole, ecclesiastical institutions would benefit from a greater commitment to prayerful and open consultation ahead of decision-making.

It has become commonplace for synod delegates to emphasize how important it will be for dioceses, parishes, bishops’ conferences, and Catholic schools and colleges to take up the “synodal style” in leadership and governance — and to stress how transformative that might be for their work.

But outside the synod hall, fewer people seem convinced. Among observers, to be sure, there are some who think that the synod on synodality represents a sea change for ecclesiastical life from which there will be no return. But others are more convinced that synodality is a faddish buzzword — that most of the Church’s leaders have given nods to synodality at the pope’s behest, and will drop the language soon after his papacy ends. 

With that question looming, discussion at the synod this week took up a question with considerable potential to determine whether synodal-style discernment will become a lasting reality, or just a flash-in-the-pan in the Church’s life. 

According to organizers, discussion this week has involved the question of the Vatican curia’s own commitment to synodality. This matters. Because it seems clear that if the pope’s own central offices don’t meaningfully adopt his mode of discernment and governance, few other Church institutions will do so for very long either.

But for the Vatican, becoming more synodal might well begin by simply picking up some practices that have fallen out of fashion during the Francis papacy. What’s unclear, at least as yet, is whether the pope and his curial aides have the will — or the patience — to do that.

In fact the Roman Curia itself, under Francis’ leadership, might offer the Church the greatest test of synodality’s conceptual viability.

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At a press conference Thursday, Vatican communications prefect Paolo Ruffini emphasized the discussion of synodality and primacy taking place inside Pope St. Paul VI Hall in the Vatican. 

Synodal delegates had urged the Vatican toward “constant consultation of local Churches,” he said, because “the pope always needs the help of the lay faithful,” and is obliged to promote “episcopal collegiality and cooperation” among the bishops of the world. 

For some delegates, he said, synodality means “change to the way in which dicasteries and dioceses engage,” especially as the Vatican exercises its teaching and governing apostolate.

Diocesan bishops around the world might well agree with that sentiment.

During the Francis papacy, the pontiff has emphasized a kind of collaborative style between diocesan bishops and their curial counterparts, and urged that curial prefects be more fraternal, and less imperious, when their brothers from around the world come to visit. Francis has advised that dicasteries should take up a posture of servitude, being available as resources to diocesan bishops, rather than as draconian overseers.

Most bishops will note a change in style among those prefects when they come to Rome for ad limina visits.

But while the synod on synodality is the Vatican’s forward face, many bishops say that the reality of actually working with the Apostolic See has become less consultative in recent years.

While once, for example, major documents on policy and practice were promulgated after extensive consultation with bishops’ conferences, texts in recent years like Fiducia supplicans and Traditionis custodes have emerged out of the Vatican’s dicasteries with little forewarning and no involvement in their development from diocesan bishops or their conferences.

In the case of Traditionis custodes, that left bishops scrambling to keep up with the theological principles emphasized in the text, and to implement a significant change to liturgical law on the fly, even as norms seemed to change in response to questions and pushback.

In the case of Fiducia supplicans, the Vatican’s failure to consult bishops’ conferences led to an embarrassing gaffe, by which pushback from African bishops saw Vatican officials drop their commitment to the normativity of the text, allowing for “regional interpretations” by which it has become effectively a dead letter in some parts of the world. 

Even the rollout of Amoris laetitia, itself a post-synodal exhortation, buried the prospect of a major shift in pastoral practice and canonical norms into a footnote, and rather than see the Vatican engage first in extensive consultation with bishops about what the pope actually wanted, the fallout of Amoris saw conferences issue competing interpretations, with the pope eventually seeming to pick one of them, that of the Argentine bishops, for his endorsement. All of that meant that conferences around the world spent time and money engaged in a kind of guessing game about what the Vatican wanted and would tolerate, while more explicit advance conversations about the document might well have saved both time and a great deal of conflict.

Even within the Vatican, inter-dicasterial consultation has waned —with the Vatican’s diplomatic office shut out of the drafting process for a major text on the environment issued by the pope last year, leading to an embarrassing situation for Vatican diplomats who were consulting on the text with major international players.

It was not always thus. It was once commonplace to see widespread consultation — perhaps even synodality — ahead of major Vatican announcements. And to some observers, it is ironic to see that fade away even while Francis calls for more synodality in the Church.

The popular narrative is that while Francis wants synodality in practice, he’s not actually willing to commit to it — synodality in the streets, autocracy in the c-suites, as it were.

But there is another possible reason why the Vatican has become less consultative on important issues: Money. 

The Vatican is — as Pillar readers well know — broke. That means curial dicasteries are understaffed, many of them deeply so. Vatican bureaucrats have been stretched to capacity. At the same time, the pope is enthusiastic to press ahead quickly on numerous pastoral and teaching initiatives seemingly important to him. That leaves dicasteries pushed to do more, with fewer resources in less time.

And in such a situation, synodal consultation might be the first thing to go out the window. 

On the other hand, money is tight in most ecclesial spaces, Germany notwithstanding, and the synod on synodality itself has already cost a lot of dioceses money they simply don’t have. But they’ve spent it, mostly because the pontiff has urged a wholesale and sacrificial commitment to his synodal vision.

And, of course, budgets are not the only reason for a decline in Vatican consultation.

Curial sources tell The Pillar they have experienced a decline in trust between dicasteries in recent years, and observed the pope’s propensity to work only with a small, and often-shifting, group of close advisers. 

“There are times we don’t even know what’s going on with things that touch our own departments,” one staffer told The Pillar recently, “which is too bad, because with a little input, we could make some of these things land a lot smoother.”

But while there are several reasons, the effect is that among many bishops, it has become clear that synodality is not yet a practical priority in many aspects of Vatican governance. That, to them, undermines the rhetoric about synodality, and even the exercise of synodal consultation taking place this month in the Paul VI Hall.  

Addressing that might require the pope to do fewer things, but to do them synodally. And it might require a change in his own personal governance style. 

But if synodality is going to be the pontiff’s lasting legacy in the Church, it will probably have to begin with the pontiff’s daily practice.