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One of the late Pope Francis’ central goals was to try and bring together the different strains of Catholicism. To do this, he used a particular device of ecclesiastical and institutional action: the synod, a council of bishops institutionalised in 1965 by the modernising Second Vatican Council to moderate and modernise the absolute power of the popes and the Roman curia in matters of faith.
Synods are not popular assemblies, but councils of the bishops of a country or a fairly large geographical area. Their members already occupy prominent positions in the church hierarchy.
“Pope Francis’ objective was to enhance the synodal element, but not as a new power structure,” says Francesco Clementi, professor of Comparative Public Law at Sapienza University, Rome. “The pope is always the pope. And as Pope Francis said, he remains a central figure in the vertical of ecclesiastical and spiritual power. The assemblies of bishops would simply have facilitated decisions (in Rome) by widening the audience in the hierarchies.”
The proposals made by synods during Pope Francis’ pontificate have been crucial for the future of the church and the faithful, such as the celibacy dispensations for Catholic priests or the potential priestly role of women in the church.
The late pontiff’s unprecedented use of the synod thus represents a decisive innovation that could change the course of both the conclave and the future pontificate.
Why synods could matter at the conclave
Synods are consultative institutions whose decisions are not binding on the pontiff, but in the age of mass media, they oblige him to be more sensitive to the needs of external and remote realities, even without bringing the Vatican’s centrality into question.
The decisions synods produce, even if not formally adopted, may therefore influence the conclave, which this year is composed of newly appointed cardinals who in many cases come from the church’s peripheries.
Moreover, papal elections often throw up surprises, as Father Gianni Criveller, director of the digital periodical Asia News, a sinologist and longtime missionary in China, explains.
“The unexpected happens in conclaves: they (the cardinals) start voting and then unexpected candidates emerge who do not necessarily correspond to the initial objectives,” he tells Euronews.
“However,* it will be difficult for someone to be elected who goes beyond what Pope Francis has already done. There would be two or three such candidates among the cardinals, but I don’t see how they can gather consensus until the end of the conclave.”
The innovative use of synods both under Pope Francis and also in the short period after his death before the papacy is filled may prove to have changed the spiritual and political agenda of the cardinal electors by introducing elements and views that are relatively heterodox, if not directly opposed to previous convictions.
However, synods do not necessarily advance progressive ideas. Their orientation depends on the geographical area and culture from which they are drawn.
The case of same-sex unions
The blessing of people in same-sex relationships was one of Pope Francis’ major decisions, and it still causes great divisions in the church.
“The entire African Church, including the bishops and cardinals, were strongly opposed to this initiative,” recalls Father Criveller. “They have clearly said that in Africa, they will never apply the letter on the blessing of homosexuals inspired and approved by Pope Francis.”
Pope Francis himself was a man capable of great leaps both forward and backward, such as on the women’s issue.
He was the first pope to appoint seven women to the top administrative posts in the Vatican, among them prefect, director of the Vatican museums and secretary general of the governorate, a position usually occupied by a bishop.
However, he did not open up the priesthood to women, a move demanded by Catholic groups from Germany to the Amazon. On this front, the Catholic Church has fallen behind Protestant and Anglican churches that have welcomed women into the clergy.
Among the cardinals taking a stance against women in the priesthood is Bishop of Stockholm Anders Arborelius, an ex-Lutheran convert to Catholicism who was appointed Cardinal of the Nordic countries by Pope Francis in 2017.
He is opposed to the priesthood of women even though in Sweden’s majority Protestant denomination, there are now more female priests than male ones.
Despite the expanded role of the synods, some proposals of the bishops’ assemblies from other parts of the world were rejected by Pope Francis, among them, the notion of allowing the appointment of married priests.
“The Amazon synod had called for the admission to the priesthood of married men,” says Father Criveller. “Not priests who can marry, but married men who want to become priests. Yet Pope Francis rejected the proposal.”
Pope Benedict XVI himself had gone further on this issue, opening the doors of Roman Catholicism to Anglican priests who were at odds with their original denomination. Moreover, dispensations have existed for centuries within the Catholic Church for married priests, among them Ukrainian Greek Catholics, Chaldeans, Maronites, Copts and other Eastern Catholics.
Do synods threaten the integrity of Catholicism?
For many sectors of the Catholic Church, therefore, synods are not a problem because of some inherent progressivism. Instead, their disruptive role could come from the diversity of their orientations and decisions.
Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen said that the electors of the future pope must be aware that he will have the responsibility to either allow the synod process to continue or decisively cut it short.
“It is a matter of the life or death of the Church founded by Jesus,” he said, concluding that if synods are disconnected from tradition and the heritage of faith, they might turn into an instrument of disunity instead of communion.
Zen is known for his harsh criticism of the agreement reached by the Vatican in 2018 with the Chinese communist government for the appointment of bishops in mainland China. The architect of the agreement with Beijing was one of the current papal appointees, the outgoing secretary of state Pietro Parolin, who would also be disliked by the US for his role in the deal.
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