The Two Synods & What We Can Do

A priest friend, Fr. Byrd, just shared this with his flock. I know you’ll find it interesting and hopefully helpful.

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For those of you who are not paying attention because you are so busy living, we feel it is our pastoral duty to inform you about two synods that are coming up. This may bore some of you, and incense some of you, but we hope to present the facts as they are known.

First, what is a synod? In the Catholic Church, synods are official gatherings within the Church. In the past they might have been made up of regional bishops convened together to decide some issue of practice or to affirm some issue of doctrine. Historically synods have been done on a national level, but they can be on a diocesan level. Moverover there can also be synods of bishops that are ordinary general synods, which have more of a universal scope. These can act something like an advisory group that will make certain observations or recommendations to the pope and then the pope could write a post synodal apostolic exhortation thereafter, which should be a document that reaffirms the unchanging teachings of the church and that reflects the sound counsel of the synod participants. Synod participants can be bishops, priests, religious and laity. They can sometimes include non-Catholics for perspective, but generally speaking synods should be faithful Catholics. Ordinarily it takes some time after the synod is over for the post synodal apostolic exhortation to be written (unless of course it was already written prior to the synod, and the synod was merely a formality).

The two synods that are coming up are both getting attention in the Catholic press here in America, but the secular press is ignorant of them of course. One of them is official, but the other is one that the Vatican seems to be attempting to shut down.

The official synod that is about to begin is to take place in Rome, but it is being called the Pan-Amazonian Synod. An instrumentum laboris is an offcial working document that is meant to set the agenda for the discussion in any synod, and the instrumentum laboris for this Pan-Amazonian Synod is available online for anyone to read. Bishops and cardinals are already dividing over this synod, even before it begins, based upon the instrumentum laboris and upon those people who have been invited to participate. There are those in the Catholic media who argue that this synod will be a propaganda tool for the more left leaning factions within the Church who tend to push a more political role for the Church, to be more aligned with Communist political theory, and that tend to place an emphasis upon environmentalism over and above our mandate to evangelize. The alarmed conservatives within the Church (some on the record, and most off the record) see this synod as an effort to change Church practice and doctrine with regards to things like the practice of priestly celibacy. The pope, who is more politically progressive, has pushed back and denied these concerns as reactionary and unfounded, implying that right-winged Americans are responsible for these criticism, but from our perspective, it looks like these divisions along more progressive or traditional lines are everywhere, and if our national political scene is any indication, they are growing more and more divisive. As Catholics there is little more than we can do than to pray for the Church, and hope that the worse fears of the Pan-Amazonian Synod's detractors are unwarranted, and that what will come out this synod will make a valuable contribution to Catholic doctrine and practice.

Another synod that is in the news is the German Synod. The bishops of Germany are calling for this national synod, and there are those within the Vatican who are alarmed and displeased by this convocation, including reportedly the pope. The bishops in Germany have been told to back down, but they are not backing down, and they are going ahead with their plans for their national synod, which, if we are to take the Germans at there word, is potentially far more progressive in its outlook than even the official Pan-Amazonian Synod could be. The more liberal bishops in Germany, many of whom have heretofore been seen as more aligned with Pope Francis, now seem to be defying him. Evidently they see their national synod as an opportunity for ‘binding’ change and the officials at the Vatican are warning them that their synod cannot change universal Church teaching and discipline (indicating that some within the Vatican foresee the German bishops as trying to do just that).

Not every bishop in Germany is on the same page, however. Gerhard Cardinal Müller, for example, would likely be very concerned that this German synod is an opportunity for mischief and malfeasance, but he is in the marginalized minority, and Pope Francis has dismissed Cardinal Müller, the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, as childish in his critiques. By the way, Cardinal Müller has written “A Manifesto of Faith” for our troubled times, in part as a response to confusion from an earlier synod of Pope Francis’s which was a Synod on the Family that was held four years ago in Rome, and you can watch it online here: https://ManifestoOfFaith.com  

So then, what are we ordinary Catholics supposed to do when the pope and his cardinals are at public odds with each other? Who are we supposed to follow when the magisterium is so demonstrably divided into political camps? Are we just supposed to ignore it all, and just pretend nothing is happening, and keep on living our lives? Certainly we must trust God, but divisions within the Church are not from God. So then, about the only answer we can think of is to cling tighter to our traditions and to double our prayer efforts, and to work to be all the more faithful to Jesus Christ. Certainly we should also work towards civility and charity in a common brotherhood in Christ.

It does not please us to have to post this, but what good is a shepherd if he doesn’t prepare this flock for a potential storm that he senses over the horizon? The storm clouds could dissipate into nothing, and we hope that they do. And yet we are not being paranoid to try to prepare the flock for what may be coming, if only because even the pope says the Church may be headed towards schism! So friends, things could get even uglier than they are at present, but let us pray that cooler heads will prevail, so that the Barque of Peter can navigate the storms that assail us once again by being firmly fixed upon the unchanging truths that have always guided us for millennia.

This post can be found on Matt Fradd's Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/posts/two-synods-what-30434926