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Francis’ efforts in building a more inclusive Catholic Church reflected in synod

The Synod on Synodality is being held in Rome from October 4 to 29. The image shows Pope Francis (back to the camera) with the synod’s participants.

By Daniel Speed

The 16th Synod of Bishops, the first part of which is taking place in Rome, from October 4 to 29, and the second in 2024, will be the culmination of a two-year, worldwide conversation in the Catholic Church.

The term “synod” usually refers to a local or regional meeting of church leaders.

The Synod of Bishops was established by Pope Paul VI in 1965 as a permanent body in the Catholic Church, although its members do not meet on a regular schedule. It specifically refers to a meeting of selected bishops from around the world to advise the pope on matters of governance.

The Synod of Bishops was set up after the Second Vatican Council, which was held from 1962 to 1965, to bring reforms and updates to the church.

The Second Vatican Council stated that the entire college of all Catholic bishops, under the authority of the pope, also serves as the church’s highest authority.

Paul VI instituted the Synod of Bishops as a way for Catholic bishops to exercise this authority. The council also stated that lay Catholics have an active role to play in the church.

As a theologian who studies the Catholic Church, with an emphasis on the period during and after Vatican II, I argue that this upcoming synod reflects Pope Francis’ efforts to advance the reform agenda of Vatican II.

He wants all Catholics to take an active role in thinking about the future of their church and wants the bishops to exercise their authority by first listening to the people.

A more open church?

Typically, there are three types of meetings of the Synod of Bishops.

Ordinary general assemblies usually get together every three or four years. The pope can also call an extraordinary meeting to discuss a more pressing topic and problem.

Finally, popes have called special meetings of bishops in a certain region. For example, Francis held a special Synod on the Amazon in 2019.

The 16th Synod of Bishops is an ordinary general assembly. At the direction of Francis, its preparation, initiated at a celebration in Rome in 2021, involved a worldwide conversation among Catholics about their church.

Catholics from around the world were invited to meet in their local dioceses, pray together and discuss questions about their church. Some 700,000 Catholics across the US took part in these conversations.

The local churches collected and summarized the results of these meetings. Leaders at the regional, national and, finally, continental levels drafted reports on these conversations.

On the basis of all these earlier documents, in May 2023 the Vatican released its working document called “Instrumentum Laboris” for the upcoming synod.

This meeting is therefore significant because it pictures the Catholic Church not as a top-down hierarchy but rather as an open conversation.

For the first time, its voting members will not only be bishops but other Catholics as well. The changes indicate Francis’s intention to give all Catholics a voice in the decision-making process of the church.

As Francis himself puts it, the synod offers an opportunity “of moving not occasionally but structurally toward a synodal church, an open square where all can feel at home and participate.”

Working document

Some 450 people are in Rome for the first part of the synod. This number include representatives of religious orders and other Catholic organizations, as well as theologians from Catholic universities.

The pope’s expanded list include a number of lay men and women. Additionally, representatives from other Christian churches are also attending the synod—although they will not have voting rights.

Those gathered in Rome will meet in both large sessions known as “general congregations” and small working groups, divided by the synod’s official languages—Italian, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Its official documents will be issued in Italian and English.

The working document outlines four broad areas of discussion: synodality, communion, mission and participation.

The first term refers to the idea that the church as a whole should incorporate the synod’s process of focused conversations, listening and dialogue into its structure. The next two—communion and mission—refer to how a global church can balance unity and diversity in pursuit of its aims.

The final term, participation, refers to the ways in which Catholics, both clergy and lay people, can take part in the church. This topic also includes discussion about what institutions and structures the church would need to create to serve its mission.

When participants talk about these topics, they will discuss issues that have divided the church—such as the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people, the role of women in the church, relations between the Catholic Church and other churches, and relations between the church and different cultures, among others.

Francis’ leadership style

This Synod of Bishops reflects Francis’ style of leadership and his vision of the Catholic Church for the future.

In his address to the synod held on October 9, 2021, the pope said the success of the mission of the church depends on the closeness of the church to its people and their ability to listen to one another.

The internal enemy of the mission of the church, according to Francis, is “clericalism,” the idea that clergy—priests and bishops—are somehow a spiritually superior class, separate from and above regular lay people.

Francis himself has modeled a different version of the papal office by rejecting many customs that he associates with clericalism. For example, he has continued to live in a modest apartment rather than in the Vatican palace.

Through the process of consultation and conversation, Francis intends to combat clericalism in the Catholic Church by offering a different model for how the church can work.

As Austen Ivereigh, a British journalist and biographer of Francis, has written: “The opposite of clericalism [for Francis] is synodality, meaning a method and process of discussion and participation in which the whole people of God can listen to the Holy Spirit and take part in the life and mission of the Church.”

After an additional year of conversations with the wider church, participants will gather in Rome again in 2024, when they will continue the discussions and vote on recommendations to the bishops. The bishops will, in turn, make recommendations to the pope, who will have the final say.

If Francis’ model of the church is persuasive, this synod, I believe, will be the beginning of an ongoing process in the church, the first of many conversations to come.

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Pope Francis’s synod is radical – but not in the way his critics think

Pope Francis speaks during the first general congregation of the Synod on Synodality at the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Wednesday.

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The assembly that Pope Francis opened in Rome last week is radical, though not in the sense that his right-wing critics have in mind. Its purpose is downright revolutionary for our era: He’s trying to get the Catholic Church’s warring camps to listen to each other.

The meeting’s mysterious name — “Synod on Synodality” — calls to mind the old joke about “the Department of Redundancy Department.” Synodality is a very churchy word that spell check has problems with and that even devout Catholics rarely summon.

But synodality, defined as consulting, listening and deliberating together (Francis is fond of the word “encounter”) is precisely the point of the meeting. It involves not only cardinals and bishops but also priests and lay people, including women — a big step for a church that privileges male power.

The synod has its roots in the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s that opened the church to the world, commended the synodal approach and defined the church not in terms of some ecclesiastical structure but as “the people of God.”

These days, the Catholic “people of God” are fiercely divided, not unlike many other faith traditions and entire nations. This frustrates Francis who thinks “the joy of the Gospel” should be enough for all factions. He hopes that reasoning together might remind them of this.

“I think he wants to create the conditions for the church to have a future,” said a Catholic official involved in planning the synod who preferred not to be named, “and if it’s to have a future, it has to learn to get along with itself, and outsiders, too.”

The preparatory document for the synod spoke of an imperative “to manage tensions without being crushed by them” (an idea that might be appealing right now in the U.S. Congress). “If it’s successful,” the official added of the synod, “it could change the ways in which Catholics sort out their own differences and that could be a gift to the wider culture.”

Such happy endings are rare in this imperfect world, and the church is still dealing with fallout from the sex abuse scandals, large-scale defections among the young, and differing priorities in the Global North and South. Francis’s open-ended vision is itself a challenge to traditionalists who think the church’s doctrine is immutable and its job is to hold fast and keep proclaiming it.

Many progressive Catholics — with whom I identify — hope a three-year process that began with consultations among Catholics around the world could culminate in Vatican III and a new round of major reforms. Among them: opening the priesthood to women and married men, a change in the church’s doctrinal approach to LGBTQ+ and divorced people, and a greater emphasis on social justice and environmental concerns.

But the dreams of liberals are the nightmares of church conservatives, as Francis’s critics brought home with a statement on the eve of the synod in which five cardinals explained a series of skeptical questions they had posed to the pope this summer. The traditionalists claimed that statements from “highly placed prelates” were “openly contrary to the constant doctrine and discipline of the Church” and could “generate great confusion and the falling into error among the faithful.”

Popes don’t always respond to such questions (known as “dubia”), but Francis did. He offered a classic summary of the view that there’s nothing wrong with a tradition keeping itself alive by responding to new insights and circumstances. “The Church,” he wrote, “must be humble and recognize that she never exhausts its unfathomable richness and needs to grow in her understanding.” He added: “Every theological current has its risks, but also its opportunities.”

In the short term, the synod is unlikely to meet liberal hopes or justify conservative fears. But this will not reassure Francis’s critics because his definition of the church’s central task differs from the prescriptions of his predecessors, Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

“Pope Francis is attempting to move us away from the culture war mind-set,” said Cathy Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at Boston College. “John Paul and Benedict were responding to the problem of relativism. Pope Francis recognizes that the real problem is nihilism, the view that nothing and no one has value. What overcomes nihilism is not an argument but personal encounter that reveals the value of people and the communities they build together.”

The pope’s approach to LGBTQ+ issues fits this model. “He’s made a critique of theology that isn’t sufficiently rooted in pastoral concerns,” said the Rev. David Hollenbach, a moral theologian at Georgetown University (where I teach), meaning thinking about how people are treated. As Francis wrote in his reply to the conservative Cardinals, “we cannot be judges who only deny, reject, and exclude.”

The synod will meet until the end of the month, and there will be another session next year. A lot could happen, or people might just keep talking. In his sermon opening the synod, Francis urged participants to be “open to the surprises of the Holy Spirit.” Given the stresses the pope is trying to ease, the Holy Spirit has a lot of work to do.

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Amid liberal revolt, pope signals openness to blessings for gay couples

German priests and counselors bless same-sex couples in front of the Cologne Cathedral on Sept. 20.

By , &

In the shadow of Cologne’s Gothic cathedral, the St. Stephan’s Youth Choir struck up a chorus of “All You Need Is Love” as couples — men with men, women with women, and women with men — lined up to have their unions blessed by ordained Catholic priests wearing rainbow stoles.

It was an act of love — but also sedition, in direct defiance of the Vatican’s decree that same-sex unions should not be celebrated or recognized.

The German Catholic Church, long known for pushing the boundaries of the faith, has been translating frustrations among progressive Catholics in pockets throughout Europe into a veritable revolt. The question for 1.3 billion Catholics now is whether the German church is in flagrant disobedience — or showing a different path.

Pope Francis has reprimanded Germany’s Catholic leadership. He quipped to the head of its bishops’ conference last year that Germany already had one protestant church — “We don’t need two.” On Monday, however, the Vatican released a document that seemed to open a door to blessing same-sex unions and the study of female priests.

In the letter, dated Sept. 25, Francis wrote that there are “situations” that may not be “morally acceptable” but where a priest can assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether blessings may be given — as long as such blessings are kept separate from the sacrament of marriage.

“We cannot be judges who only deny, push back and exclude,” Francis wrote. “As such, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or several people, that do not convey a wrong idea of a matrimony. Because when one seeks a blessing, one is requesting help from God.”

Pope Francis leads a blessing in St. Peter’s Square for the synod that opens Wednesday.

His words appeared to contradict a 2021 Vatican statement that confirmed a ban on blessing same-sex couples. Francis has also notably removed the conservative official said to be the architect of that decision and appointed a fellow Argentine who has seemed to take a different view.

Francis’s letter released Monday appeared to reveal less movement on the question of ordination for women. He wrote that Pope John Paul II had ruled against female priests and that the decision must be respected for now. But he also suggested the topic could be further researched.

Both the role of women in the church and blessings for same-sex couples, as well as the possibility of a married priesthood, are among the divisive topics on the agenda as Catholic leaders gather at the Vatican this week for the most sweeping summit on the direction of the faith since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

Francis has already been facing a revolt on the right, with his most bitter conservative critics decrying him as a heretic. They have maligned the arcanely named Synod on Synodality — running from Wednesday through Oct. 29 — as a smokescreen for liberal reform.

Vatican watchers were not expecting big pronouncements, as the synod will convene again next fall and ultimately send recommendations to the pope then. And the Vatican has been playing down any notions of rapid reform.

But Francis has raised the hopes of progressives — and stoked the fears of traditionalists — that the church might, on some issues, begin to move in the direction of Germany.

German churches have been inviting women to say the homily at Mass and to baptize babies. Scores of German priests and monks have come out as celibate gay men, while some Catholic schools and churches have begun flying rainbow flags. A majority of German bishops have backed Catholic blessings of same-sex unions, calls for female deacons and the ordination of older, married men as priests.

“Many progressive Catholics look to the German church for a hopeful sense of where the church might be going,” said the Rev. James Martin, a U.S. delegate at the synod known for his ministry to LGBTQ+ Catholics. “But of course, just as many traditional Catholics look upon the German church with suspicion.”

Catholics participate in a papal blessing Saturday.

At the Vatican, conservative fears and progressive hopes

The synod opening Wednesday — on the feast day of St. Francis — is not a political process, Vatican officials contend, but a chance for discussion, to “discern” God’s will for the direction of the church.

It requires that participants attempt to talk to each other — understanding that they represent an institution that encompasses German, Belgian and Swiss bishops who are already allowing blessings of same-sex couples, as well as American, African and Asian bishops who decry them.

The 364 voting delegates, observers say, include a relative balance of centrists, traditionalists and reformers, with some of the most extreme players on both sides left out.

But conservatives, including dozens of bishops from the United States, complain the synod is stacked against them.

They call its structure — which for the first time will allow laymen and women voting rights equal to cardinals and bishops — fundamentally un-Catholic. They see program documents asking for “concrete steps” to better welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics and people in polygamous marriages, among other categories, as dangerous.

Conservatives fear the synod process will open what they see as a Pandora’s box, eventually leading to unprecedented change on priestly celibacy, the acceptance of homosexuality and the elevation of women in a historically patriarchal church. They warn it could bring about a new schism, or split, in the world’s largest Christian faith.

Francis’s letter released Monday was written in response to a challenge, known as a dubia, issued by five conservative cardinals. They called on him to reinforce Catholic doctrine that condemns homosexuality and reserves ordination for “baptized males” only.

“The primary concern is that the pope will authorize things that are not contained in Catholic doctrine or that will contradict it — such as women deacons, blessing gay unions,” or weaken Catholic teachings against contraception and abortion by emphasizing individual conscience, said the Rev. Gerald Murray, a New York City priest who was not invited to the synod but will be in Rome doing commentary for conservative outlets.

“We’re not Protestants,” he said.

Predicting what the pope will do is much like reading tea leaves.

Francis raised the prospect of change early in his papacy, intoning “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay Catholics. But he has been exceedingly cautious about altering doctrine. For instance, he has shied away from allowing married priests in the Amazon region, where extreme clerical shortages seemed to warrant it.

But as the 86-year-old pope looks to cement his legacy, much will depend on where he lands on these issues — whether he decides to urge the church closer to progressive positions. He faces the challenge of how to assuage liberal Europeans, in places where the church is rich but dying, without alienating fast-growing if more traditional churches in the developing world.

Catholic priests bless same-sex and heterosexual couples last month in Cologne, Germany.

Going beyond talk in Germany

The Cologne Cathedral, where relics of the Three Kings are said to rest, is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. The writings of a rogue German priest named Martin Luther were publicly burned in its courtyard in 1520. Late last month, it served as the backdrop for a modern Catholic clash.

The Rev. Wolfgang Rothe, a wiry, openly gay German Catholic priest, organized the group blessing in reaction to a local cardinal, one of the few in Germany still disciplining priests for blessing same-sex couples. Rothe used the service as a rallying cry for the synod.

“I call on you, tell the pope, tell the synod of bishops, tell the world church: The current sexual morality of the Catholic Church is outdated,” he said. “It is unbiblical and immoral … a slap in the face of the loving God. This sexual morality belongs on the trash heap of church history.”

Nearby, a gaggle of conservative opponents prayed the rosary in protest. More radical elements on both sides — far-right Catholics and left-wing activists — jostled amid bullhorns and placards, and police intervened.

The Catholic Church in Germany is facing a crisis.

Measurable through a national church tax, German Catholics have been abandoning the church in record numbers — 522,000 last year alone. In a poll of those who had recently left the faith, the most common reason specified was the church’s handling of sexual abuse; the second its rejection of homosexuality.

Catholic bishops and laypeople in Germany sought to address that disaffection as they formulated their contribution to Francis’s synod, through a body called the Synodal Way.

Kai and Jens Vermaeten receive blessings during the event in Cologne.

Francis warned from the outset against a unilateral effort. “Every time the ecclesial community tried to get out of its problems alone, trusting and focusing exclusively on its strength or its methods, its intelligence, its will or prestige, it ended up increasing and perpetuating the evils it was trying to solve,” he wrote in a 2019 letter.

Nonetheless, by March of this year, Germany’s Synodal Way had proposed sweeping changes, including the ordination of female deacons and a reexamination of priestly celibacy in addition to same-sex blessings.

German bishops have mostly backed the proposals, while trying to buy time on some topics. They supported the ordination of female deacons, for instance, while conceding they first needed the permission of the Vatican.

But they have also grown more daring. In a country where the Catholic Church is the second-largest employer — with 800,000 workers, or six times more than Mercedes-Benz — German bishops amended the church’s labor law last year, so people can no longer be fired for being in a same-sex relationship or remarrying after divorce.

The Vermaetens at the group blessing in Cologne.
Stefanie and Amrei Sell after the blessing.

And in March, a majority of German bishops voted to allow blessings of same-sex couples — separate and distinct from the sacrament of marriage, but with standardized ceremonies to be drafted by 2026.

Liberal reforms have taken shape in other countries, too, but theologians see what Germany is doing as singular. They attribute it to a society that has emerged as one of the globe’s most socially progressive — and has a taste for rules.

“Some of these things happen in quieter ways in countries like Brazil,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University. “But the Germans are Germans, so they want formal recognition. That’s what’s different. They don’t want just de facto change. They want formal permission to change the books.”

The push within Germany matters all the more because the German Catholic Church ranks among the world’s richest — its dioceses are collectively far richer than the Vatican. And with this wealth, Germany helps to fund seminary schools and parishes across Latin America and Africa.

Marianne Arndt leads a portion of the service Sept. 24 at St. Theodore’s Catholic Church, on the edge of Cologne.

On a recent Sunday at St. Theodore’s Catholic Church on the edge of Cologne, Marianne Arndt’s white cassock billowed as she approached the pulpit to preach.

Arndt — a spiky-haired 60-year-old who said she had a calling from God as a young woman — has worked as a parish counselor here since 2016. She initially began offering a “final blessing” in lieu of last rites to dying patients at hospitals, using holy water instead of priestly oils. She began preaching during Catholic Masses years ago, but started describing her words as a “homily” in 2020, arguing that the time had come to “call it what it is.”<

Except that Catholic canon law requires an ordained deacon or priest to say the homily at Mass, and women can be neither.

The Rev. Dionysius Jahn, one of two parish priests who typically celebrate Mass alongside her, called her sermon an extension of religious teaching. He acknowledged the arrangement was atypical. “It’s very progressive here,” he said. “There are others that view [a woman in a role like this] very critically. They wouldn’t accept what’s going on here.”

It smarts, Arndt said, that she must metaphorically stand “behind” a male priest to deliver the homily, and she bristles against those who say she should leave the faith if she doesn’t abide by its rules.

“It is also my church, and I don’t run away,” she said.

Arndt is part of the Catholic revolt in Germany.

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Pope Francis meets to discuss Strickland resignation

Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler.

By The Pillar

At a meeting Saturday, Pope Francis discussed with Vatican officials the prospect of requesting the resignation of Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, The Pillar has learned.

The pope met Sept. 9 with Archbishop Robert Prevost, OSA, head of the Dicastery for Bishops, and Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States – both cardinals-elect.

Several sources close to the dicastery told The Pillar ahead of the meeting that the prelates would present the pope with the results of an apostolic visitation of Stickland’s diocese, conducted earlier this year, as well as subsequent public actions by the bishop, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Holy Father.

“The situation of Bishop Strickland is the agenda,” one senior official close to the dicastery told The Pillar, “and the expectation is that the Holy Father will be requesting his resignation — that will certainly be the recommendation put to him.”

While noting that the papal audience did not exclusively concern the Bishop of Tyler, who has previously accused the pope of having a “program [for] undermining the Deposit of Faith,” the official said that Strickland’s case was set to be the “primary point of discussion.”

“There are two aspects,” the official said, “there is the matter of the public scandal from all these comments about the pope and the synod, but there are also real problems in the diocese. Those were the focus of the visitation; there are concerns in the diocese about governance, about financial matters, about basic prudence.”

The official predicted that the pope was unlikely to decide to depose Strickland as bishop of his diocese, a canonically rare act, but told The Pillar that Pope Francis would be advised to encourage the bishop to resign.

“The consensus in the dicastery is that he will be asked to consider resigning,” the official said. “That has been the substance of discussion among the members.”

“Depending on how the bishop responds, the strength of that encouragement could be increased,” the official said, and cited the case of Bishop Richard Stika who announced his resignation as Bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., earlier this year after being informed he no longer had the confidence of either the Holy See or his own clergy.

Prevost, who has been prefect of the Vatican dicastery since April, leads the department responsible for recommending candidates for episcopal appointments to the pope.

The department also oversees disciplinary investigations and processes concerning bishops’ acts of governance under the norms of Vos estis lux mundi and Come una madre amorevole, laws brought in by Pope Francis to enhance accountability among the episcopate.

Prevost, a member of the Augustinian order and a Chicago native, is one of three American members of the dicastery, the others being Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark.
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If Strickland is encouraged to resign, it is not clear how he would respond to such an invitation.

In July, Stickland addressed the Vatican ordered visitation of his diocese, comparing it to being sent to “the principal’s office.”

“I think that I went through this because I’ve been bold enough, and loved the Lord enough and his Church, simply preaching the truth,” Strickland said in July.

The Vatican probe was confirmed by The Pillar June 24, after rumors surfaced on social media, and the visitation was reported on the Church Militant website. The apostolic visitation, an official review of diocesan leadership and governance, was conducted by Bishop Gerald Kicanas, emeritus of Tucson, and Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, who filed a report with the Dicastery for Bishops.

The visitation included questions about the governance of a diocesan high school, considerable staff turnover in the diocesan curia, the bishop’s welcome of a controversial former religious sister as a high school employee, and the bishop’s support for “Veritatis Splendor” — a planned Catholic residential community in the diocese, which has struggled with controversy involving its leadership’s financial administration and personal conduct.

Sources familiar with the investigation have previously told The Pillar that diocesan officials and clergy interviewed as part of the process were asked about the possibility of Bishop Strickland stepping down and canvassed for their views about suitable possible successors.

Strickland, 64, has been Bishop of Tyler since 2012; he was before that a priest of the same diocese.

The bishop has long been celebrated by many leaders in the pro-life movement, for his outspoken defense of human life, and opposition to abortion. The bishop is a frequent user of Twitter, with more than 135,000 followers.

In recent years, Strickland has been critical of Pope Francis, and was outspoken in his criticism of the Holy See’s approach to vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic, urging a more stringent position than the Vatican’s on ethical questions surrounding vaccine testing and embryonic cell lines.

In May, Strickland tweeted that he “rejects” Pope Francis’ “program undermining the Deposit of Faith” and he has built an increasingly national profile and following on a number of issues.

In June, Strickland left the U.S. bishops’ conference meeting in Orlando, FL., to lead a rally outside the stadium of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball club, part of a wider public pushback against the team’s decision to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an LGBT activist group specializing in Catholic-themed drag acts.

Although both the USCCB and the Los Angeles archdiocese called for prayers and acts of spiritual reparation for the baseball event, the archdiocese also told Catholics that it had not given its “backing or approval” to a prayer rally organized by conservative groups, some of which have a controversial place in the American Catholic landscape.

USCCB president Archbishop Timothy Broglio also distanced himself from the prayer rally headlined by Strickland, telling The Pillar in June that he questioned such a demonstration’s effectiveness and said it posed a risk of potential physical confrontation. 

In July, following the apostolic visitation, Strickland released a pastoral letter to his diocese in August in which he warned Catholics about “the evil and false message that has invaded the Church, Christ’s Bride.”

“In this time of great turmoil in the Church and in the world, I must speak to you from a father’s heart in order to warn you of the evils that threaten us, and to assure you of the joy and hope that we have always in our Lord Jesus Christ,” Strickland wrote, before enumerating several points of Church teaching which he said would be debated at the upcoming session of the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

Senior sources close to the Tyler diocese told The Pillar that the tone of the letter had surprised many senior clergy of the diocese. Several figures in the diocese confronted Strickland over the tone of the letter, The Pillar was told, and warned the bishop his position was becoming untenable.

“People were deeply alarmed” by the letter, one senior source close to the diocese told The Pillar, “but the bishop was having none of it. He was absolutely firm that he was saying what needs to be said and that he wouldn’t be silenced by anyone.”

Some sources in the diocese have told The Pillar that Strickland claims he has been directed by the Blessed Virgin Mary to continue his outspoken engagement on global Church affairs.

However, despite Strickland’s reportedly bullish response to concerns within the diocese, he released on Sept. 5 a second letter, which he called “a more in depth consideration of point number one as expressed in the Pastoral Letter I issued on August 22,” and in which he treated several of the same points but in less emphatic terms.

Since the apostolic visitation in Tyler, there has been considerable debate and commentary on the subject among U.S. Catholics.

Some Catholics — among them both Strickland’s supporters and detractors — have said the bishop’s outspoken commentary on Church issues has likely put him in the spotlight of Vatican officials. Some of Strickland’s supporters have said the visitation in Tyler seems to them like a political move.

Addressing the possibility that the visitation could lead to his being asked to resign, Strickland vowed in July that no matter the outcome, he expects to continue his public role in the Church’s life.

“They won’t stop me,” Strickland said. “When we’re speaking the truth of Jesus Christ, there is no politically correct. And the world can try to shut us down, but it won’t work.”

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‘You can count on us.’

— Synod organizers attempt to dismiss fears ahead of fall meeting

An aerial view of Vatican City, left, in Rome.

The Synod on Synodality has a communications problem, and it risks reinforcing papal critics.

By

As Catholic bishops and lay people prepare to gather in Rome this October to begin discussions on the main challenges facing the church, tensions over the topics — and the stakes — of the summit have grown.

Papal allies and organizers of the October 4-29 event — the “Synod on Synodality: Communion, Participation and Mission” — are trying to defuse the tension and reassure faithful that the church has nothing to fear from the discussions even if they will take place behind closed doors.

“The way we will communicate the synod is very important for the discernment process of the entire church,” said Paolo Ruffini, who heads the Vatican communications department and will conduct briefings on the event during the month of October, at a press conference at the Vatican on Friday (Sept. 8).

With its unassuming title, the Synod on Synodality could be easily dismissed as a gathering of no consequence. When describing the event, organizers use the terms “walking together,” “enlarging the space of our tent” and “ecclesiology.” But the summit is actually the culmination of a three-year process initiated by Pope Francis to engage the church at every level and has the opportunity to not only radically subvert power structures in the traditionally hierarchical institution, but also to create a new system of governance that can overcome growing polarization.

The success of this ambitious project greatly relies on how much people who participate in it believe in it, organizers said. Members of the Vatican’s Synod office have structured the event in such a way as to promote healthy dialogue, with short discussions interrupted by prayer and meditation, group retreats and small working groups. Individuals trained in synodality, called facilitators, will guide the event and help participants engage in a spirit of unity and fraternity.

Despite the efforts the Vatican has made to ensure the discussions at the synod occur in a collegial and thoughtful way, the church has little to no control of how the event is perceived from the outside. The Catholic Church is currently addressing controversial issues concerning the welcoming of LGBTQ Catholics, the creation of leadership roles for women and female ordination, and the accountability of bishops on questions ranging from sexual abuse to financial mismanagement. Anxieties abound over how the synod will grapple with these polarizing topics.

Local synodal expressions, such as the Synodal Way in Germany, have taken a very progressive stance on some of these issues and even defied Vatican recommendations by blessing same-sex couples.

Pope Francis talks to reporters during the return flight from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Monday, Sept. 4, 2023, at the end of a historic four-day visit to a region where the Holy See has long sought to make inroads. (Ciro Fusco/ANSA via AP, Pool)
Pope Francis talks to reporters during the return flight from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Monday, Sept. 4, 2023, at the end of a historic four-day visit.

To ensure attendants can speak freely, the Vatican Synod office has maintained that the speeches and conversations within the hall will remain secret. “We have to preserve the synodal environment,” Pope Francis said, answering questions by journalists on his return flight from Mongolia on Monday (Sept. 4). “This isn’t a television show where everything is on the table, no, it’s a religious moment, a religious exchange.”

Ruffini quoted the pope’s words during the conference on Friday, underlining the need to preserve “the sacredness” of synodal discussions. He also underlined that most institutions don’t publicly share the internal debates leading up to a decision.

At the end of the synod event, attendants will approve a synthesis document that will be made public. But it won’t be the final report, Ruffini specified, since there will be a second synod meeting at the Vatican in the fall of 2024 that will issue a final document.

“We are really counting on how media will be able to communicate this communal effort of ours,” he said, before adding: “You can count on us.”

Ruffini specified that the opening Mass, the first general assembly meeting and the opening sessions of each sections, or modules, will be livestreamed. The five modules will focus on the topics of synodality, participation, mission and communion and a final synthesis and approval of the synod report.

Shutting the doors on synodal discussions in the past has contributed to frustrating previous synods under Pope Francis, with coverage being centered on polarizing topics and sensationalist statements. When the pope called bishops and Indigenous peoples to the Vatican in 2019 to discuss the Amazon region, where fires burn down trees daily and pollution endangers the forest, articles on the event centered around a young conservative Catholic who stole a sacred image of Amazonian peoples and tossed it in the river Tiber.

The Vatican has so far ensured the synod will issue daily briefings and provide detailed information about what is happening behind the closed doors of the synod hall. The Synod on Synodality has opened its process and discussions to rank-and-file Catholics more than any other modern Vatican gathering, and now those people feel invested in the result of their efforts.

Synod on Synodality logo. Courtesy image
Synod on Synodality logo.

The secrecy that typically surrounds Vatican events, even one as open as the Synod on Synodality, has fueled papal critics who believe the summit is nothing more than a cover for the pope to implement a liberal agenda. After all, while synod participants will get to vote on the topics, it will be the pope who in the end draws the conclusions from the event.

In a new book that likened the synod to “a Pandora’s Box,” papal critic Cardinal Raymond Burke warned the summit could cause confusion and even schism.

The pope during the in-flight press conference acknowledged the polarization inside and outside of the synod. While he said that “there is no place for ideology inside the synod,” he also recognized that many looking from the outside are afraid the event will ultimately lead to changes to church doctrine.

“If you look deep at the root of this fear you will find ideology,” the pope said. “It’s always ideology that wishes to detach itself from the path of communion with the church.”

The synod is “very open,” the pope insisted, explaining that the discussions will be kept private to avoid fostering a climate of gossip and politics. After all, he said, “the synod isn’t a parliament.”

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