Synods and synodality: Pope Francis’ method, vision for church

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While Pope Francis often bucked formality and sidestepped some offices of the Roman Curia, one institution he believed in deeply was the Synod of Bishops and — even more — the notion of “synodality.”

He told cardinals and superiors of Roman Curia offices in December 2021: “The synod wants to be an experience of feeling ourselves all members of a larger people, the holy and faithful people of God, and thus disciples who listen and, precisely by virtue of this listening, can also understand God’s will, which is always revealed in unpredictable ways.”

While the ways could be unpredictable, Pope Francis was certain that God’s will was about mission and that synodality was key to taking the prayers, experiences and intuitions of Catholics all over the world and using them to discern new, better ways to share the Gospel message.

Not everyone appreciated the pope’s insistence on listening to everyone and discussing controversial issues like Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, or the place of LGBTQ Catholics in the church or the possibility of ordaining women deacons — all issues that made headlines at recent synods even though they had been mentioned at synods under his predecessors, too.

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, had told Catholic News Service in 2023 that he believed the first 10 years of Pope Francis’ pontificate were preparation for “the synodal conversation.”

The Second Vatican Council called Catholics to read the “signs of the times” and respond. And, the cardinal said, “this notion that we don’t have automatically prepared prescriptions for every challenge that faces us leads us to a fundamental tenet of our belief,” which is belief “in the Holy Spirit, the lord and giver of life.”

“Synodality is a way of being church,” Cardinal Tobin said. “It’s an ancient way of being church that is being recovered and lived in the circumstances in which we face ourselves today. And so, to my mind, that’s sort of the capstone of what Pope Francis has been working for over the last decade.”

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago also thought Pope Francis had been laying the foundation for a new synod process — the multi-year process leading to the assemblies on synodality in 2023 and 2024 — since the beginning of his pontificate. “There’s an organic whole to all of this,” he said.

The cardinal said the whole process of the synod on synodality seemed, “in some way, the opportunity for him to pull everything together.”

Pope Francis’ efforts culminated in the three-year process of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, a process that included: listening to hundreds of thousands of Catholics in parishes across the globe; national and continental consultations; and two monthlong assemblies at the Vatican where, for the first time, “non-bishops” — lay women and men and men and women belonging to religious orders — had an equal vote with the bishops.

At the end of the second assembly, in October 2024, members passed a final document, which Pope Francis adopted as his own and asked bishops to begin implementing.

The document called on parishes and dioceses to move quickly to give life to the consultative bodies and broad participation in mission and ministry already foreseen in church law. It also urged bishops to hire more women and laymen to teach in seminaries and all Catholics to reach out to people who “experience the pain of feeling excluded or judged because of their marital situation, identity or sexuality.”

Calling for the “full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women,” synod members also noted that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open.”

The possibility of women deacons and of women in ministry more generally was one of the topics raised in the synod process that Pope Francis had taken off the 2024 agenda and assigned to study groups before the assembly met in Rome. Other groups were looking at issues like reforming seminary education, relations between bishops and religious communities and the role of nuncios; the groups were asked to work on proposals to give the pope by June 2025.

In 2015, marking the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the synods for the universal church, Pope Francis called them “one of the most precious legacies of the Second Vatican Council.”

The council’s vision of the church as the community where all the baptized are empowered to take responsibility for mission, especially outreach to those who are excluded or tossed aside by civil society, could take concrete shape only through a synodal process, he believed.

Another of the late pope’s constant refrains, though, was that the synod was not a parliament.

While emphasizing listening and shared responsibility, Pope Francis insisted that recognizing the baptismal gifts of all did not mean everyone in the church had the same ministry, role or vocation.

The International Theological Commission, a group of theologians appointed by the pope and working under the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, published a lengthy scholarly document in March 2018 on “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church.”

In its Catholic understanding and usage, the commission wrote, synodality “promotes the baptismal dignity and co-responsibility of all, makes the most of the presence in the people of God of charisms dispensed by the Holy Spirit, recognizes the specific ministry of pastors in collegial and hierarchical communion with the bishop of Rome, and guarantees that synodal processes and events unfold in conformity with the deposit of faith and involve listening to the Holy Spirit for the renewal of the church’s mission.”

In other words, consulting and listening to all members of the church is essential for discerning a path forward, but those decisions cannot violate the truths of the Christian faith and must be verified by a priest, bishop or the pope, depending on whether the decision is local, diocesan or has a universal impact.

Still, Pope Francis said he envisioned a church that is “synodal” at every level, with everyone listening to one another, learning from one another and taking responsibility for proclaiming the Gospel.

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