Does the Synod want to change doctrine?Keys and risks of a Synod that aims to involve the whole ChurchMsgr. Luis Marín: "The Synodal Church is not an invention of the Pope".There were no conclusions, nor were there intended to be. The objective was to listen to one another, and to bring to the table of the General Secretariat of the Synod a faithful synthesis of what had emerged from the work of the assembly.
Not even the final document of the bishops-only meeting, held at the end of the assembly behind closed doors, provides any conclusions or interpretative guidelines. Only the commitment to "a more synodal Church"which confirms the final document.
However, among the folds of the bishops' considerations are several issues that are likely to be central to the next synodal assembly to be held in October 2023 and then in October 2024.
Therefore, it is necessary to understand how the process is developing, starting precisely from what has happened in Europe, one of the most diverse continents in terms of language and history.
The European continental stage
Transforming the Synod from an event to a processPope Francis also established continental stages, that is, moments in which the Churches of a specific geographical area meet to define challenges and possibilities. In addition to the stage of PragueIn addition, one was held in Oceania, one is underway for North America and another in the Middle East for the Churches of the Eastern Rite, while preparations are underway for Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Each continent has followed its own methodology, taking into account size and other practical problems. Europe decided to meet in person, but to maintain a broad representation online, leaving it to the 39 Bishops' Conferences of the continent to choose the representatives of the delegations.
From February 5 to 9, 39 national reports and hundreds of brief interventions were heard, offering a very precise vision of the challenges facing the Churches of the continent.
The final document has not yet been published, but has already been accepted by the assembly. Drafted during the working days, and not prepared in advance, the document was intended to be as faithful a snapshot as possible of the interventions.
It was read to the assembly, which made its observations, and the reason why it has not yet been published is that it is necessary to incorporate some observations and also to edit the text, to make it more homogeneous; a work that will touch the linguistic style, but not the content.
From this document, however, the final considerations were released, which contained some of the commitments of the European delegates to create a so-called "more synodal Church".
Some noted that the eight points of commitment were not mentioned at any point in the eight points of commitment. abuse in the Church and its crisis. But the aim was not to address all the issues, but to focus on the perspectives that really emerged from the debate.
The working document of the continental stage demanded, in its item 108, that the bishops meet after the synodal assembly, and so it happened from February 9 to 12. At the end of this bishops-only meeting, the "final considerations" of the bishops were published.
Again, it was decided not to address specific issues, but to seek a common compromise. Issues such as the war in Ukraine or the 26-year prison sentence of Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Àlvarez were left out of the bishops' document, with the intention of having pastoral but not political documents.
In this regard, the February 14 statement on the situation in Nicaragua by Archbishop Gintaras Grušas, Archbishop of Vilnius and chairman of the Council of European Bishops' Conferencesshould be considered as a continuation of the assembly.
The statement, which speaks harshly of an injury to the rule of law and calls on the presidents of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe to take a stand before their governments, is a mandate arising from the meeting following the synodal assembly.
Topics of the debate
The documents have a purely pastoral character. The document discussed in the assembly, about 20 pages long, received several suggestions from the assembly: the request to better specify the position on the war in Ukraine; the request to avoid too much sociological language (as progressives and conservatives) and to use more ecclesial language; the need to better define the role of women in the Church; the specification that the synodal journey should go "with Christ", not without him.
It is a four-paragraph document, the conclusions of which were made in the evening. We read in it that "once again we have felt the pain of the wounds that mark our history, beginning with those inflicted on the Church by the abuses perpetrated by some people in the performance of their ministry or ecclesial office, and ending with those caused by the monstrous violence of the war of aggression that bloodied Ukraine and the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria.
In any case, there is a positive reception of the assembly, considered "a form of Pentecost", and a commitment to "deepen the practice, theology and hermeneutics of synodality", and to "address tensions in a missionary perspective", experimenting ways for a "synodal exercise of authority", taking care of "a formation to synodality", and listening to the "cry of the poor".
Sometimes they seem vague considerations, but one can find some of the issues that came up in the assembly. Among them, the gap between East and West Europe, to which must also be added the unexplored gap between North and South, the differences in the management of charisms, even the role and authority of the bishop and the priest.
And it was striking, in an assembly that also seemed to be an exaltation of the role of the laity, how it was precisely in the most secularized places where there was a call to reinterpret the role of the priest, to put him back at the center, to start again from the mission.
The bishops' document
The final document of the bishops should also be read with nuances. The bishops have meditated on the results of the assembly. Their final considerations "accompany" the assembly, but do not replace or comment on the text.
There is, in these considerations, a commitment to "support the indications of the Holy Father, successor of Peter, for a synodal Church nourished by the experience of communion, participation and mission in Christ". But it is also a text that puts back at the center the role of the bishops, called to guide the people of God.
One of the underlying fears was precisely that the synodal process would dilute the role of the bishops. For this reason, prior to the continental stage, Cardinals Mario Grech and Jean-Claude Hollerich, secretary general of the synod and synod rapporteur respectively, sent a letter reaffirming the importance of the role of the bishops. As expected, the letter was printed in several languages and made available to the delegates in Prague.
It is, in a certain sense, a new path, bumpy as all new things are. What is certain is that the common belonging to Christ, established from the beginning of the assembly, remains firm. And this is a fact not to be underestimated.
