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A Listening Church on the Synodal Pathway: Discernment and Decision-Making in Communion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Pope Francis's has described his vision for a synodal Church, not simply as a once off programme of renewal, but as God's desire for the Church of the third millennium. As such, it aims to concretise the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, making the Church today more manifestly one of communion, participation, and mission. It differs from previous synods and Councils in history in that it more directly invites and involves all the baptised in a direct process of listening and discernment to the voice of the Holy Spirit. This paper aims to understand from a theological perspective how listening will work in a synodal Church, by exploring firstly what we mean by the ecclesiology of communion from the Council. Such an ecclesiology, manifesting the equal dignity of the faithful in Christ, will ground listening at the level of participation in God as well as acknowledging the gift of infallibility given to the whole Church. It means calling on the Holy Spirit to help discern how and where, the apostolic deposit of faith has been received by members of the body. It also explores what we mean by listening to the sensus fidei of the whole body and how the authority of laity and hierarchy operate both in united but distinct ways within a synodal process grounded in communion ecclesiology. Overall, such listening is to be done carefully for the sake of the Church's mission as the sacrament of salvation to the world.
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References
1 Synod of Bishops, Preparatory Document: For a Synodal Church-Communion, Participation, Mission, 1, September 7, 2021, 10, accessed October 5, 2022, https://www.synod.va/en/news/the-preparatory-document.html
2 The link between the Synodal process and the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council has been interpreted by many different theologians in different ways to emphasize different aspects. For Massimo Faggioli, it is a development of collegiality from its link to the People of God model of Church and its emphasis on the sensus fidelium. See ‘From Collegiality to Synodality: Pope Francis's Post Vatican II reform', Commonweal, November 23, 2018, accessed July 9, 2023, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/collegiality-synodality See also Colberg, Kirsten, ‘Expanding Horizons 150 Years after Vatican I: Toward a Renewed Relationship between Synodality and Primacy'. Theological Studies, 83(1), pp. 70–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argues that Pope Francis’ vision of synodality does not contradict Vatican I on Primacy and also advances the ecclesiology of Vatican II. However she argues, it ‘“crosses a threshold” from the discrete language of Vatican II's documents to a more capacious vision emanating from the council itself’. For Jos Moons, SJ, synodality represents a creative, pneumatological interpretation of the Council, complementing its original Christocentricity, and continuing the Council's move away from an institutional ecclesiology. See ‘The Holy Spirit as the Protagonist of the Synod: Pope Francis's Creative Reception of the Second Vatican Council’, Theological Studies 2023, 84 (1): p. 61-78CrossRefGoogle Scholar’. See also Gaillardetz, Richard, ‘Synodality and the Francis Pontificate: A Fresh reception of Vatican II’, Theological Studies 2023, Vol. 84 (1): pp. 44-60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Here he explains how Pope Francis’ vision builds on both the People of God and the Pilgrim model of Church from the Council (p. 45).
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4 ‘Communion, Participation and Mission’, is the subtitle of the Synodal process as outlined in the Vademecum.
5 Vademecum, 15.
6 Vademecum, 15.
7 Vademecum, 6.
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30 LG 12.
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71 See ARCIC II, ‘The Gift of Authority’, https://iarccum.org/doc/?d=15. While this document is an agreed statement by the two denominations and is not an official statement of either, I would argue that its ideas have been assimilated in Catholic teaching for a development at the level of the interpretation of doctrine- the idea of the Church as communion with a deepened application in collegiality and synodality.
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