Some Synodalists are politically spinning what a great success the Synod has been and some just cannot hide their disappointment
World Synod: Roman awakening and disenchantment in realtu
The World Synod debated church reforms for four weeks. She has no decision-making powers. This is where awakening within the church and real political demands collide. The synodal dynamic is likely to come too late for Switzerland. A classifying analysis.
Emasculated episcopate and empowered laity
The World Synod does not make decisions. Neither 2023 nor 2024. Both those responsible and critics have been pointing this out for months. Those in charge because they don't want to create false expectations. Critics because they believe the Synod is a waste of time. Despite all the repetitive repetition, many Catholics in Switzerland are likely to be disappointed today. Not just because of the lukewarm statements on the core Swiss issues of “women” and “LGBTQ+”.
The disappointment is understandable. From the outside, it's hard to understand why the Vatican would go to such lengths to ensure that people spend four weeks discussing reforms - only to be unable to decide on any in the end.
“Ecclesiastical Political Revolution”…
If you want to understand it, you have to take a look inside. More precisely, in recent church history. Against the background of the strict theological regime of John Paul II (1978-2005) and Benedict XVI. (2005-2013), the freedom of speech within the church that prevails under Francis is “a small church political revolution,” as Helena Jeppesen-Spuhler puts it in an interview with kath.ch.
Helena Jeppesen-Spuhler: “A small ecclesiastical-political revolution”.
Seen in this way, the World Synod is a milestone. Freedom of expression and discussion applies here, as the Church last experienced in the phase of awakening after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Keyword: Synod 72. And there is a culture of discussion that was previously unknown at synods of bishops. At the World Synod it is not one bishop who speaks and the others who listen. Bishops, women and men speak at the World Synod. Everyone has the same speaking time. That is new.
... which is hardly communicable
Outside the Vatican walls, however, the novelty of free and equal debate is difficult to convey because the delegates remain without a quorum. In Europe, the church won't win a pot of flowers with speeches without consequences. Jesuit concepts of synodality, which inspire the Pope and hope in the Holy Spirit, are too foreign to people. The mistrust of fine words and empty promises, which have too often had no consequences in two decades of abuse crisis, runs too deep.
Doesn't have to share his power, but now has to share his speaking time with lay people: the high clergy.
This mistrust may be particularly deep in German-speaking countries. In addition, the major reform topics that the World Synod is debating - women's priesthood, compulsory celibacy, regionalization, inclusion - have already been discussed for 50 years. They were all already topics of Synod 72.
Mistrust on both sides
While many believers distrust their church, the church at the world synod for its part cultivates distrust of the world. Media professionals in particular felt this. At the beginning of the synod, Pope Francis committed the synod members to silence and regulated press access. This sometimes took on absurd traits.
The employees of the Vatican press office resembled suspicious sheepdogs. During the opening of the last week of the synod, the media representatives did not let them out of their sight. In the meantime, they herded the press, like a herd of sheep, into a fenced area before they were led to the designated gallery to take photos.
The intervention of the Vatican guards during the interview with Felix Gmür and Helena Jeppesen Spuhler seemed similarly grotesque. The interview, begun under the colonnades of St. Peter's Square, had to be completed eight steps further south, on Italian soil.
One inside and one outside
The synod's secular incomprehension and the Vatican's blocking of the world were clearly noticeable in Rome. Both follow a logic that is consistent in itself. Within the church, the World Synod, which is a synod of bishops despite the lay people, is important. Because it allows the bishops to get used to pluralism of opinions and to a mature people of God.
In the medium term, the World Synod may even pave the way for systemic adjustments in the world Church, which is plagued by clericalism and whose structures have rusted. The problem: In Switzerland the Church no longer has this time. Here the Roman awakening meets disenchantment in reality politics.
Cathcon: Distressing to hear the Synodalists like parrots repeat the anticlerical rhetoric of the Pope. So destructive of the Church and the priesthood.
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