The delegates have arrived in Rome. The round tables are set up in Paul VI Hall. And the final session of the Synod on Synodality is about to begin.
But before the nearly month-long gathering gets going Tuesday, it’s worth asking: how exactly did we get here?
The Catholic Church has been in the midst of the 2021-2024 synodal process for so long now that it may be easy to forget what a massive undertaking the entire project has been.
The multi-year, multi-stage synod has required not only significant investments of time and attention (as well as untold financial resources), but also a concerted effort to define synodality theologically and put in place practical programs to implement it.
Clearly, a big push was needed to set in motion the current course of action, which has not only led to this month’s culminative session but may very well make all things synodal an ongoing feature of Catholic life.
And the single most decisive factor in getting this synodality ball rolling was a short but monumental papal speech given nine years ago this October.
A ‘Landmark’ Address
On Oct. 17, 2015, Pope Francis addressed the participants of the then-ongoing Synod on the Family, marking the 50th anniversary of Pope St. Paul VI’s establishment of the Synod of Bishops.
At just under 2,300 words, the Pope’s speech wasn’t especially long. In fact, it was a full 1,000 words shorter than the one he had given a month earlier before the U.S. Congress.
And it also wasn’t the first time the pontiff had employed the term “synodality.” The word was used once, for instance, in Francis’ 2013, agenda-setting apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, and had been peppered in the occasional papal interview.
But the 2015 address was different. It didn’t just mention synodality. It called it “a constitutive element of the Church.”
Synodality, broadly defined as “journeying together,” was the focus of the entire speech, and Francis provided an image of what a Church reconfigured along its lines would look like: an “inverted pyramid,” where the post-Trent divide between a teaching hierarchy and a learning laity would be overcome, authority would be decentralized, and the “sense of the faith” of the People of God would be centered in Church decision-making and discernment.
Citing the Synod on the Family’s consultation of lay people as an instance of synodality and declaring the practice what “God expects of the Church of the third millennium,” Francis’ speech was nothing short of a programmatic call for ecclesial reform — although the new motif that would guide the overhaul was still in need of a fuller explanation.
And in the immediate aftermath of the address, a set of theologians rushed in to provide just that.
Defining ‘Synodality’
Following Francis’ speech, which was described as a “landmark” address by voices across the ecclesial spectrum, usage of the previously little-used term “synodality” skyrocketed.
According to Google Books Ngram Viewer, the usage rate in English-language texts increased by 260% from 2015 to 2019. Similar results have played out in the Spanish, French and Italian-speaking worlds.
Speaking in 2016 about one of these new theological texts on synodality, but applicable to most entries in the genre, former general secretary of the Synod of Bishops Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri identified Francis’ 2015 speech as the work’s definitive “starting point.”
In fact, many of the theologians who swiftly stepped in to define synodality after the Pope’s speech are now part of the Synod on Synodality’s dedicated cadre of theological experts. In this capacity, they have played decisive roles in crafting the documents that have guided the process at each stage and will also be responsible for drafting the synod’s final text at the end of this month.
These experts include the Dutch canonist Myriam Wijlens, who said that Pope Francis’ 2015 speech “hit the reset button” on the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, “transform[ing] the totality” of the council’s doctrines on the Church and revelation by “placing them into a new relationship with each other.” Wijlens, who said that she took part in a private meeting with Pope Francis in October 2015 to discuss how to support synodality-based reforms, advocates for canonists to take an activist approach in implementing synodality at the local level even “in spite of” existing canon law.
Rafael Luciani is another theologian who has played an outsized role in striving to define synodality and is now serving as an expert at the synod. The Venezuelan, who recently said that changing Church governance at the synod will open the door for doctrinal changes, has written or edited at least nine books on synodality since 2015. In another sign of his influence on the process, Luciani served as the thesis director for synod undersecretary Sister Nathalie Becquart during her 2019-2020 studies on the topic at Boston College.
Responding or Rebranding?
But while these theologians’ recent work on synodality is often presented as an organic response to Pope Francis’ speech, in many instances the theological ideas they’ve advanced pre-date the 2015 address in critical ways.
For instance, although Wijlens argues that Francis’ vision of synodality is completely novel, she maintains that the “leading article” related to synodal decision-making and taking remains a piece on “shared responsibility in ecclesial decision-making” written all the way back in 1980.
Similarly, the Australian theologian and synod expert Father Ormond Rush has authored one of the most cited accounts of synodality, the 2017 article, “Inverting the Pyramid: The Sensus Fidelium in a Synodal Church.” Father Rush grounds his account in Pope Francis’ 2015 speech — but many of the Australian’s arguments and themes are already spelled out in his 2009 book, The Eyes of Faith: The Sense of the Faithful and the Church’s Reception of Revelation, well before Francis was elected, let alone elevated “synodality.”
For instance, in 2009 Father Rush emphasized the importance of making lay consultation an integral part of the inner life of the Church to make evangelical outreach credible, just as he did in his 2015 piece. In fact, the 2015 article is in many ways another iteration of Father Rush’s longstanding thesis regarding the necessity of gauging the sensus fidelium in order for Church authorities to teach legitimately, now restated in a papally-championed key.
The impression given is that, rather than offering a fresh new theology, many experts have simply presented their longstanding theological projects under the new brand of “synodality.”
Others have pointed out that many of the ideas undergirding many of the synod’s official documents, such as the 2024 session’s instrumentum laboris, are particularly indebted to the controversial 20th-century German theologian, Jesuit Father Karl Rahner.
“Numerous key claims in the text only make sense in light of a Rahnerian understanding of revelation and spiritual experience, or something close to it,” Dominican Father Bernhard Blankenhorn previously told the Register, citing “the notion of an ongoing revelation in the experience of believers today, one that can justify the reversal of previously defined dogmas” as an example.
Father Blankenhorn, a dogmatic theologian at Fribourg University, suggested that the group of theological experts guiding the Synod on Synodality is not representative of the breadth of Catholic theology. He noted that Pope St. John XXIII had broadened the theological perspectives of those involved in preparing the main drafts of Vatican II’s documents after some bishops had made the request so that “the rich breadth of Catholic theology be represented” on that particular commission.
“One wishes that Pope Francis would do the same for this synod,” the Dominican told the Register.
Father Blankenhorn himself has published a scholarly article on synodality in a recent issue of The Thomist. His piece presents an understanding of the “sensus fidei” that contrasts with Father Rush’s.
But Father Blankenhorn’s contribution came out only in 2023 — well after the likes of Wijlens, Luciani and Father Rush had already advanced their own definitions of synodality, and had subsequently been tapped as expert advisors to the dedicated synod on the topic.
The Dominican priest is not on the list of theological experts for this October’s session.
Mounting Momentum
While a certain set of theologians worked to define synodality in the years immediately following 2015, a series of important Vatican moves in 2018 built upon the momentum begun with Francis’ speech.
First, and at the Pope’s request, the International Theological Commission issued a comprehensive study of synodality, which was well-received through much of the Church, lending credence to the concept. (Although, interestingly enough, the document appears to be under-cited in Synod on Synodality texts, while only four of the 30 theologians who were ITC members when the document was drafted are serving as experts at the Synod on Synodality).
Second, Pope Francis issued Episcopalis Communio, a new apostolic constitution that beefed up the authority of the Synod of Bishops.
And finally, synodality was heavily referenced in the final document of the Synod on Young People — even though the topic was not a point of discussion among the synod fathers, and was likely added anyway by organizers.
Each of these steps helped pave the way for Pope Francis’ Feb. 17, 2020, announcement of the multi-year, multi-stage Synod on Synodality, which is now nearing its completion.
But pieces are already in place to help facilitate whatever is likely to come next.
The Discerning Leadership Program, led by Jesuit Father David McCallum, a Synod on Synodality small group facilitator, has already helped train other synod facilitators in the “conversation in the spirit” methodology.
Now, the program will likely be joined by new initiatives like the U.K.-based School of Synodality and Sophia University’s synodality training courses in offering further synodal-style formation for reforms that will likely take place at more local levels, such as training proposed “ministers of listening,” who may play key roles in facilitating the “communal discernment” envisioned by the 2024 preparatory document.
Based off how synodality has advanced in the Catholic Church since Pope Francis’ landmark address nine years ago, one thing seems certain: When a new step is made public, some group has likely already begun implementing it.