Posted on 03/31/2025 10:57:03 AM PDT by ebb tide
As the Vatican begins a three-year implementation phase of the Synod on Synodality, is the process — already criticized for flirting with Protestant ecclesiology — moving ever more toward a model of governance alien to the Catholic Church?
On March 15, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, announced that the “Accompaniment Process of the Implementation Phase of the Synod on Synodality” will culminate in October 2028, not in a synod of bishops but in something novel in Catholic Church governance: an “ecclesial assembly” where the “People of God,” made up of roughly equal numbers of bishops, clergy, religious and laypeople, will propose perspectives “for the entire Church.”
This is a notable departure from the previous assemblies of the Synod on Synodality where the majority of the votes were cast by bishops.
Cardinal Grech confirmed in an interview with Vatican Media that as the ecclesial assembly will be a gathering of the whole Church, it will be different in “nature and function” from a traditional Synod of Bishops, “which is and remains essentially an assembly of bishops.”
The goal of the implementation “journey,” he said, is to “help churches walk in a synodal style” and to ensure that “a true ‘conversion,’ a change in mentality,” has “time to take root in the Church’s practice.” The process also aims to strengthen “bonds between churches at national, regional, and continental levels.”
The Register contacted Cardinal Grech for comment on these concerns, but his spokesman said he was not giving interviews at this time.
The newly announced phase, which will begin this summer, was ...
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
If I understand it correctly, Papa Frank is using the word “synod” loosely to give it a feel of incorporating all of the RCC’s leaders, while in truth it’s only his hand-picked mouthpieces. So it’s not a true synodal structure (i.e. not like the Lutheran Missouri synod having separate leaders from the ultra-liberal ELCA synods). And certainly not like the more classic RCC structure of A Council with leaders from all over meeting every hundred years or so.
To me it is Hegelian. Synod after synod after synod after synod finally leading to a synthesis that reflects neither dogma nor tradition. It reflects an entirely new church.
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