What exactly is synodality as we know it?

[Stella]

AB Anthony Fisher is a very conservative member of the Australian clergy and here he gives a good clear explanation. It is very interesting.

What Synodality Is

Although we might think it a novel concept in the pontificate of Pope Francis, the noun σύνοδος (synod) has a long history in Catholic thought and practice,[1] especially in Eastern Christianity. And the Holy Father has broached the subject of synods and the underlying ‘synodality’ in addresses for the Synods on the Family, Youth, Amazonia and Synodality, and in other places.[2] He has also used new verbal, adjectival and adverbial progeny, ‘synoding’, ‘synodal’ and ‘synodally’, in various contexts.

Synodality is said to be “an expression of the Church’s nature, form, style and mission”.[3] It is “the whole Church”, “one great people… Fratelli tutti”, “an open square where all can feel at home and participate”.[4] It imagines a Church aware of people’s needs and aspirations, formally gathered to reflect upon a common theme, and led in that process by the Holy Spirit. Here Pope Francis emphasizes the elements of journeying and togetherness—what he calls a pilgrim hermeneutic.[5] It has a levelling effect: on this journey, all are heard and their opinions valued, the ordinary faithful no less than the prelates, and even social outcasts. A synod is a “point of convergence” where the ideal of ‘a listening Church’ is actualized: not just a consultation among the lay faithful, followed by a talkfest of bishops, followed by a document from the Pope, but an evolving process, now being refashioned as “a privileged instrument for listening to the People of God”.[6]

As a verb synoding captures certain ways of being and acting as a Church: stopping, listening “with the ear of the heart” [7], encountering, discussing, discerning, praying together; in the process, coming closer to each other, encountering Christ, evolving and handing on the Tradition, and serving the People of God. Synoding is ecclesial living, marked “by praying and opening our eyes to everything around us; by practicing a life of fidelity to the Gospel; by seeking answers in God’s revelation”.[8] It is “an exciting and engaging effort that can forge a style of communion and participation directed to mission.”[9]

The adjective synodal and adverb synodally qualify the Church or ecclesial activities as welcoming, accommodating, hearing, in “sincere, open and fraternal discussion”;[10] “avoiding artificial, shallow and pre-packaged responses”;[11] accepting and involving diverse people; and oriented not just to more talk but to active service of others. A ‘synodal process’ is one whereby the whole Church, under the impetus of the Holy Spirit, moves from one place or way of thinking or acting to another and is united rather than fractured in the process.

What Synodality Is Not

While having concrete expression in ecclesiastical structures, such as synods and episcopal conferences, synodality might best be understood as an ecclesial sensibility. It is not a fifth mark of the Church alongside being One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, but rather an attitude reflecting the ecclesiology that emerged as the master-narrative from the Second Vatican Council’s reflections on the Church as sacrament, communio and collegiality—a matter to which I will return. Rather than a flattening of ecclesial hierarchy or secularizing of governance structures, it is above all an affirmation of the gifts and potential contributions of all Christians to the Church’s mission.[12]

Pope Francis has in fact repeatedly critiqued liberal democratic or secular political readings of synodality. “The Synod is not a parliament or an opinion poll”,[13] “neither a convention, nor a parlour… nor a senate, where people make deals and reach a consensus”,[14] nor a slogan to be bandied about at meetings so some group can get its way, nor a reduction of God’s will to the flavour of the month.[15] No, a synod is an ecclesial reality, an expression of the Church’s nature and mission, a journey by which the Church seeks “to understand reality with the eyes of faith and the heart of God”, with the deposit of faith as the “living spring from which the Church drinks”.[16] Rather than achieving consensus and making deals, a synodal Church seeks to proclaim the truth and save souls.[17]

Another misconception of synodality into which we can easily slip is a bureaucratic one. Here synodality is a tick-a-box exercise of conducting the asked-for consultations, writing up the reports, submitting them on time to the national collators or the international synod office, or parallel behaviour in other consultations. Years ago, Hans Urs von Balthasar called for a theology devised on our knees in worship rather than one formulated on our asses at a desk; and Joseph Ratzinger warned us about a paper-dominated episcopacy, inundated with administrivia and distracted from spreading of the Gospel, with bishops and priests who produce more committee minutes than pastoral fruits.[18]

What insulates synodality from a politicised, bureaucratic or corporate exercise, Pope Francis insists, is its principal protagonist, the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, we can hold an ecclesial U.N. meeting or diocesan parliament, “examining this or that question”, but it will not be a true synod, which is “the faithful people, the college of bishops, the Bishop of Rome: all listening to each other, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of truth’ (Jn 14:17), in order to know what He ‘says to the Churches’ (Rev 2:7).”[19]

Synodality as Prayer and Sacrament

We have a name for this type of communication with God, and attuning ourselves to His will, and inspiring us to carry out His mission for the Church: Prayer. Pope Francis has called the Synod a “process of spiritual discernment, of ecclesial discernment, that unfolds in adoration, in prayer, and in dialogue with the word of God.”[20] Synods will only be a space for the action of the Holy Spirit if participants engage in “trusting prayer… that is the action of the heart when it opens to the divine, when our humours are silenced in order to listen to the still quiet voice of God.”[21] Without this, our words become empty, our decisions, whatever they may be, merely decorative.

Another helpful way to think about synodality as a sensibility that doesn’t descend into corporate or parliamentary misconceptions is to recover Vatican II’s teaching on the Church as a sacrament of Christ, a communion in and of the Holy Spirit, led collegially by the bishops with their collaborators the clergy.[22] If the story of the road to Emmaus is the ultimate example of σύνοδος ‘journeying together’, we must acknowledge that amidst the listening and talking the two climactic moments were Christ breaking open the Word and then Breaking the Bread. Synodality then is both prayerful and sacramental; it is about communicating with God in the context of His Church and participating in the mystery of His life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Synodality, understood as a prayerful, sacramental sensibility stretches beyond its application in the episcopal context and radiates as a model of hierarchical communion in the local Church, in our governing and advisory bodies and meetings, internationally, nationally, in dioceses and in parishes. Locally it should be an impetus to listen to new voices, views, pastoral strategies, ways of service, all faithful to the tradition, while eschewing politicized or bureaucratized misconceptions of the Church and her mission.

https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/archb ... nd-is-not/

[Gandalf the Grey]

Which is fine as far as it goes regarding one person's interpretation.

But the problem with the ambiguous way in which "Synodality" has been redefined is that it creates the incentive structure for "Synodality" to be reinterpreted and reimagined in more than just one way, which necessarily causes certain consequences to emerge that those who were perhaps a little too naive to foresee and never perhaps intended.


https://www.ncregister.com/cna/breakin ... rch-unity

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

He fixed it.

[Stella]

Which is fine as far as it goes regarding one person's interpretation.

But the problem with the ambiguous way in which "Synodality" has been redefined is that it creates the incentive structure for "Synodality" to be reinterpreted and reimagined in more than just one way, which necessarily causes certain consequences to emerge that those who were perhaps a little too naive to foresee and never perhaps intended.


https://www.ncregister.com/cna/breakin ... rch-unity

That's true of the implementation of anything new that relies on the 'gifts' and contributions of the group. The Magisterium isn't going anywhere and will continue to have the authority to steer the ship as it is now doing regarding the German Church.

[Gandalf the Grey]

Which is fine as far as it goes regarding one person's interpretation.

But the problem with the ambiguous way in which "Synodality" has been redefined is that it creates the incentive structure for "Synodality" to be reinterpreted and reimagined in more than just one way, which necessarily causes certain consequences to emerge that those who were perhaps a little too naive to foresee and never perhaps intended.


https://www.ncregister.com/cna/breakin ... rch-unity

That's true of the implementation of anything new that relies on the 'gifts' and contributions of the group. The Magisterium isn't going anywhere and will continue to have the authority to steer the ship as it is now doing regarding the German Church.

Except Magisterial intervention wouldn't even be necessary of not for the fact of certain individual's obsession with inventing a plethora of novel methods that precisely give the green light to ideologues who are intent on acting against the Magisterium.

That's the problem with this concocted war of novelty vs "tradition." "New" doesn't mean "better," and more often than not it just makes what you're trying to do even worse by creating a whole lot of other problems, while never actually doing anything to solve the problems your "new" solution meant to fix.

[gherkin]

He fixed it.

I got better.

[Doom]

Except Magisterial intervention wouldn't even be necessary of not for the fact of certain individual's obsession with inventing a plethora of novel methods that precisely give the green light to ideologues who are intent on acting against the Magisterium.

That's the problem with this concocted war of novelty vs "tradition." "New" doesn't mean "better," and more often than not it just makes what you're trying to do even worse by creating a whole lot of other problems, while never actually doing anything to solve the problems your "new" solution meant to fix.

OKay but, when in Church history has that not been true? is not what you said true about every Council in history starting with Nicea in 325? Isn't Arianism the ultimate "novelty"?

[Stella]

People went off the deep end with the initiatives of the Council of Trent. Pope Paul III's goal was Christian unity and not the tragic case of the Huguenots being rounded up and murdered by French Catholics for example. Doesn't mean the work of Trent was a failure. It just needed proper re-calibrating as has happened through the life of the Church.

[Gandalf the Grey]

Except Magisterial intervention wouldn't even be necessary of not for the fact of certain individual's obsession with inventing a plethora of novel methods that precisely give the green light to ideologues who are intent on acting against the Magisterium.

That's the problem with this concocted war of novelty vs "tradition." "New" doesn't mean "better," and more often than not it just makes what you're trying to do even worse by creating a whole lot of other problems, while never actually doing anything to solve the problems your "new" solution meant to fix.

OKay but, when in Church history has that not been true? is not what you said true about every Council in history starting with Nicea in 325? Isn't Arianism the ultimate "novelty"?

Last I checked Nicea wasn't called to endorse Arianism, was it?

[Gandalf the Grey]

People went off the deep end with the initiatives of the Council of Trent. Pope Paul III's goal was Christian unity and not the tragic case of the Huguenots being rounded up and murdered by French Catholics for example. Doesn't mean the work of Trent was a failure. It just needed proper re-calibrating as has happened through the life of the Church.

So....your claim is, without any actual evidence to back it up, that French Catholics took Trent and then went on a killing spree?

When the historical records show that there was a war going on and the current French king had feared that the Huguenots were amassing an army and staging a coup. No mention of any Catholic being even "inspired to kill Huguenots" by the Council of Trent appears anywhere.

What you just did can only most charitably be called historical revisionism.

[Stella]

People went off the deep end with the initiatives of the Council of Trent. Pope Paul III's goal was Christian unity and not the tragic case of the Huguenots being rounded up and murdered by French Catholics for example. Doesn't mean the work of Trent was a failure. It just needed proper re-calibrating as has happened through the life of the Church.

So....your claim is, without any actual evidence to back it up, that French Catholics took Trent and then went on a killing spree?

When the historical records show that there was a war going on and the current French king had feared that the Huguenots were amassing an army and staging a coup. No mention of any Catholic being even "inspired to kill Huguenots" by the Council of Trent appears anywhere.

What you just did can only most charitably be called historical revisionism.

It was one of the many apologies Pope StJPII made during his papacy. This one made at a prayer vigil in Paris during WYD 1997.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 3e3fefa28/

What were the forced conversions to Catholicism and the massacre of Huguenots if not distortions of the decrees of Trent?

[Doom]

Last I checked Nicea wasn't called to endorse Arianism, was it?

So you're saying Francis is a heretic actively trying to destroy the Church? You do realize this belief places you in all but formal schism, it is not logically possible to believe unless you are, at least in spirit, a Sedevacantist or even a Protestant.

[Gandalf the Grey]

People went off the deep end with the initiatives of the Council of Trent. Pope Paul III's goal was Christian unity and not the tragic case of the Huguenots being rounded up and murdered by French Catholics for example. Doesn't mean the work of Trent was a failure. It just needed proper re-calibrating as has happened through the life of the Church.

So....your claim is, without any actual evidence to back it up, that French Catholics took Trent and then went on a killing spree?

When the historical records show that there was a war going on and the current French king had feared that the Huguenots were amassing an army and staging a coup. No mention of any Catholic being even "inspired to kill Huguenots" by the Council of Trent appears anywhere.

What you just did can only most charitably be called historical revisionism.

It was one of the many apologies Pope StJPII made during his papacy. This one made at a prayer vigil in Paris during WYD 1997.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 3e3fefa28/

What were the forced conversions to Catholicism and the massacre of Huguenots if not distortions of the decrees of Trent?

Your citation literally doesn't have anything in it to support your assertion.

It's like saying that the Troubles were a bi-product of Irish Nationalists taking Vatican I too far without any actual reference from Irish Nationalists to Vatican I. It's nothing but you engaging in conjecture. Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.

OTOH what the Germans are doing they expressly state are the result of Francis' constant teaching regarding "Synodality" and "a listening Church."

[Gandalf the Grey]

Last I checked Nicea wasn't called to endorse Arianism, was it?

So you're saying Francis is a heretic actively trying to destroy the Church? You do realize this belief places you in all but formal schism, it is not logically possible to believe unless you are, at least in spirit, a Sedevacantist or even a Protestant.

I didn't bring up Arianism, you did.

I'm not saying anything about Francis being a heretic. What I am saying is that either through Rousseauean naivety or ignorance and his over-reliance on Hegelian dialectical methods is allowing heresy and schism to flourish in the Church, which then necessitates his appeals to Peronist heavy-handed strong man tactics when either he feels insulted or those things take on a life of their own.

[BobCatholic]

his over-reliance on Hegelian dialectical methods

I have no idea what this means. I googled about HD and got even more confused.

[Gandalf the Grey]

his over-reliance on Hegelian dialectical methods

I have no idea what this means. I googled about HD and got even more confused.

It's probably better that you don't. He's a darling of Leftist "thinkers" but generally he's ridiculed by most competent philosophers.

Hegel had a peculiar fondness for Gnosticism and alchemy and he incorporated many concepts of those things into his philosophy, most notably the notion of "aufhaben" which is a complex term to understand. It essentially means to "abolish" or "negate" but simultaneously also includes the preservation of the things being abolished. It's weird and incoherent, but you have to remember that the law of Non-contradiction isn't an obstacle to some people's way of thinking.

His dialectical method of precisely that kind: you have the idea, and then it's negation that is supposed to dismantle the idea, and from that a synthesis of the two is supposed to emerge. Marx, who was himself a Hegelian, took that dialectic and incorporated into his materialism.

Down through the decades others have taken that dialectic and incorporated it into other aspects of life such as race(which is where you get Critical Race Theory), sex, and religion....which is where you get the schools of Liberation Theology which were the bi-product of men like Paolo Freiri and Dom Helder Camara and were all the rage in South American countries like Argentina.

Certain imperatives of Francis show me that he's at least in a way facilitating it. He uses apparently benign sounding words and phrases like "a listening Church" or how things like doctrine and Dogma need to be "open to discussion and discernment" or "doctrine develops over time" or "doctrine needs to be understood in light of people's concrete circumstances" which on its face is absurd. Dogma and doctrine pertain to Divine Revelation the only one who has the authority discern them is the Holy Spirit. It's not up to us to conform doctrine to the current day's trends or fads. To me those are in fact invocations to Hegelian negation.

When the latest Synod titled issued their summary document as a "synthesis report"-a term which to my recollection had never even been used before by the Church in any such context- that immediately sent my antennae buzzing.

Do we have a Pope or are there those around him that are unconsciously(hopefully) or in fact consciously infecting the Church with elements of an esoteric mystery cult religion that the Church has previously and emphatically condemned? I don't know. I hope not. But the ratcheting up of the agenda and the rhetoric combined with the rather unabashedly horrible and tyrannical treatment of bishops who speak out against this agenda gives me serious pause.

[BobCatholic]

His dialectical method of precisely that kind: you have the idea, and then it's negation that is supposed to dismantle the idea, and from that a synthesis of the two is supposed to emerge.

So using this dialectic: There is good and evil and the synthesis is some gray area where some evil is acceptable.

Oh yeah, I can see the guy downstairs approving of this.

The problem with this dialectic is that there is no stopping.

After the synthesis, there's an opposite. So boom, another synthesis. And it goes down toward the extremes little by little.

good + evil = 50% evil synthesis
50% evil + evil = 75% evil
75% evil + evil = 87.5% evil
and so on.

(of course, they could do this toward good - but this HD conveniently doesn't go down that way)

[Vern Humphrey]

It reminds me of the Army -- every incoming Chief of Staff would decree, "We need more (standardization, professionalism, battle drills, what have you.)" For the rest of his tour the whole Army would be trying to figure out, "What IS standardization, professionalism, battle drills, what have you?"

Which explains why we make so little progress.

[Gandalf the Grey]

His dialectical method of precisely that kind: you have the idea, and then it's negation that is supposed to dismantle the idea, and from that a synthesis of the two is supposed to emerge.

So using this dialectic: There is good and evil and the synthesis is some gray area where some evil is acceptable.

Oh yeah, I can see the guy downstairs approving of this.

The problem with this dialectic is that there is no stopping.

After the synthesis, there's an opposite. So boom, another synthesis. And it goes down toward the extremes little by little.

good + evil = 50% evil synthesis
50% evil + evil = 75% evil
75% evil + evil = 87.5% evil
and so on.

(of course, they could do this toward good - but this HD conveniently doesn't go down that way)

I play this game with socialists....you know how socialists and communists despise fascists of any stripe...where I pose the question of what if communism isn't the end of history but just rather another ideal that becomes the status-quo...and what if fascism is just the antithesis of communism where some other synthesis is supposed to emerge?


It's funny watching their heads nearly explode trying to figure that one out.

[gherkin]

A communist would have to have virtually no grasp of communism in order to grant the premise.

FWIW, philosophers, including many very good ones, do indeed take Hegel seriously. It's hard to take him any other way. He was wrong, but obviously profound. Dime store Frankfurt School knock-off marxists are foolish, perhaps, but Hegel and indeed Marx are not to be taken lightly. It may be worth pointing out that Alasdair MacIntyre, perhaps the greatest living philosopher, started off as a Marxist and still deals with Marx at a very high level, despite having become a kind of a Thomist a few decades ago.