Pope Francis’ monthlong meeting on the longer term of the Catholic Church was wrapping up Saturday with voting on a final document on the role of girls and the way the church can higher reply to the needs of the faithful today.
Organizers and participants alike have tried to temper expectations for any big changes to emerge, especially on hot-button doctrinal issues reminiscent of the church’s views on homosexuality. They have insisted that the mere means of forcing bishops to take a seat down at round tables to take heed to odd Catholics for a month was the necessary novelty of the gathering.
But there was no denying that Francis’ big Synod on Synodality, because the meeting is named, and the two-year canvassing of rank-and-file Catholics that preceded it, has indeed generated expectations.
Progressives have hoped the gathering would send a message that the church could be more welcoming of LGBTQ+ people and offer women more leadership roles in a hierarchy where they’re barred from ordination. Conservatives have emphasized the necessity to stay true to the two,000-year tradition of the church and warned that opening debate on such issues was a “Pandora’s Box” that risked schism.
Regardless of how the meeting ends, it’s not over. Another session is planned for next October, with final recommendations or conclusions from that meeting presented to Francis for his consideration in a future document.
Francis called the synod as a part of his overall reform efforts to make the church a more welcoming place. In his vision of a “synodal” church, the faithful are listened to and accompanied moderately than preached at by an out-of-touch “clerical” hierarchy that has anyway suffered a credibility crisis over clergy abuse scandals world wide.
In a novelty, he allowed women and laypeople to vote alongside bishops, putting into practice his belief that the “People of God” within the pews are more necessary than the preachers and will need to have a greater say in church decision-making. That mission and his call for “co-responsibility” has inspired particularly women looking for the restoration of female deacons, a ministry that existed within the early church.
“Though some appear to think it is feasible to discuss co-responsibility in mission without addressing the elephant within the room, the basic equality of girls and their access to all ministries of the church is an issue that may persist until it’s attended to with fierce attention to the Gospel,” said an announcement this week from Women’s Ordination Conference, which has been staging events, marches and protests in Rome all month.
But the mere inclusion of laypeople as voting members within the meeting prompted some to query the legitimacy of the gathering itself. They note that the “Synod of Bishops” was created to supply the pontiff with the reflection of bishops, the successors of the apostles.
Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, whom Francis appointed as a member of the synod but has not hidden his opposition to it, said the gathering could hardly be called a Synod of Bishops “when lay people have the identical voice, they’ve the identical time to talk, they usually take away opportunities for the bishops (to have) the chance to talk.”
In an interview published Saturday within the National Catholic Register, Mueller outlined a scathing critique of the meeting, saying it was a manipulated, theologically light gathering claiming to be the work of the Holy Spirit but really aiming to undo church teaching.
“All is being turned around in order that now we have to be open to homosexuality and the ordination of girls. If you analyze it, all is about converting us to those two themes,” the German theologian was quoted as saying by the Register.
The interview appeared Saturday, apparently respecting Francis’ call for delegates to refrain from chatting with the media through the meeting except when chosen to talk at official Vatican press conferences, where detailed contents of the deliberations aren’t revealed.
The Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, a British Dominican whom Francis asked to supply spiritual reflections periodically through the meeting, had a far different take. He praised the inclusion of laypeople as truly reflecting the spirit of a synod.
“There’s a gathering of representatives of the College of Bishops, however it also shows the bishop not as a solitary individual, but immersed within the conversation of his people: Listening, talking, learning together,” he said.
But even Radcliffe cautioned against expectations of radical change.
“It’s a synod that gathers to see how we could be church in a latest way, moderately than what decisions must be taken,” he told reporters this week. He added that the method had only just begun. “And that’s why there will likely be bumps. There will likely be mistakes. And that’s fantastic, because we’re on the best way.”
