[Catholic Caucus] The Holy Spirit and the Synod on Synodality

National Catholic Register ^ | September 14, 2023 | Father Raymond J. de Souza

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More than two years into the greatest talking shop in the history of Christianity, some oddly undermining things are now being said — and by the greatest proponents of the synodal process themselves.

Consider just three voices — the Holy Father himself, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago and Jesuit Father James Martin. The latter two were appointed by Pope Francis as voting members of the synod. Cardinal Cupich was not elected as a member by his brother bishops in the United States.

The Holy Father

Last month, Pope Francis acknowledged that the entire synodal process strikes many as exactly the kind of ecclesial self-absorption that the Holy Father has inveighed against since his election. 

“I am well aware that speaking of a ‘Synod on Synodality’ may seem something abstruse, self-referential, excessively technical, and of little interest to the general public,” Pope Francis said on Aug. 26. 

Indeed, others share the papal frustration with the lack of interest in, and confusion about, the entire process in all its stages, from parochial to planetary. 

In November 2021, when the synodal process was newly unveiled, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio in the United States, said that if it was a “meetings about meetings,” it would be a “purgatory.” Indeed, the very “idea of having a meeting about meetings” would mean that “we would certainly be in one of the lower rings of hell in Dante’s Inferno!”

Eighteen months later, Archbishop Pierre addressed the U.S. bishops again and the tone was not so lighthearted, replaced by a grim acknowledgement “that we are still struggling to understand synodality.” That may be because synodality is, in Cardinal-designate Pierre’s phrase, “about a way of being Church” that is new and challenging.

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