When Francis was elected pope in 2013, “synodality” was a technical term used mostly by ecclesiologists and Church historians. But a synodal Church was the hope of many who did not have the word for it. The conclusion of the second assembly in October did not necessarily satisfy those hopes. But the process and the Final Document suggest that Catholicism is moving in the direction of a more communional, participatory, and missionary Church—if slowly.
The assemblies of October 2023 and October 2024 had the difficult task of slowing down runaway local synodal experiences (Germany, for example) while at the same time spurring synodal momentum in churches where it was lacking (including some U.S. dioceses). The model Pope Francis had in mind was Latin American, infused with Jesuit practices. The process has been complex—conversations at the local, national, and continental levels, and then at the central level. It differed from previous synods and Vatican II, where the restitutio to the local churches of what was elaborated at the center took place formally only at the end of the Synod’s assembly in Rome. But there was a sensible improvement from the first assembly to the second. The first took the form of a “conversation in the Spirit,” with little or no integration of theological expertise. But the intersession and the second session of October 2024 corrected this in important ways—providing evidence that theology still matters.
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