A progressive rediscovery
The main reason for the renewed interest in the theme of synodality is the attention given to it by Pope Francis since the beginning of his pontificate. The concept of synodality is not present in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and most of the studies dedicated to this theme are quite recent.
Only in the 1990s and the first years of the new millennium do we witness a progressive flowering of research, initially of a juridical and historical nature – an example is the volume Synod and Synodality, fruit of a conference held in Bruges in 2003 – and subsequently in systematic theology.
These studies examined various experiences of ecclesial synodality, such as the periodic synods of bishops, instituted by Paul VI at the time of the Council; the numerous diocesan synods convened for the reception of Vatican II in the local churches; and the activities of pastoral councils, presbyteral councils, and pastoral consultations and assemblies, all of which are instruments of participation of the people of God recommended by the Council.
At the same time, research has been enriched by comparisons with the synodal practices of both the Orthodox churches and the churches of the Reformation, along with the principles that guide those practices.
Most Christian churches already function in synodal forms, making use of synodal institutions and processes, although in highly varied ways and with different pre-suppositions. Less frequent have been the studies with an ecclesiological perspective.
These studies, by recovering the biblical foundations and examining the various forms of synodality in Church history, have focused especially on the nature of the Church, the subjects having a voice in ecclesial life, the development of synodal relations, the relationship with episcopal collegiality, and the pastoral challenges presented by the recovery of synodality as a “constitutive dimension of the Church”.
We mention, among others, the studies produced by Hervé Legrand, Gilles Routhier, Jean Marie Tillard, and the 2005 congress of the Italian Theological Association. This first phase of the research involved only a few theologians, mainly European.
These pioneers met subdued resistance from most other theologians and received no support from the magisterium, but we are now witnessing a proliferation of studies on a diversity of topics, using very different approaches regarding theological categories and pastoral implications.
Pope Francis and Synodality
The references to synodality have increased steadily in the speeches of Pope Francis, and synodality has become increasingly evident in the strategic pastoral choices of his pontificate. The Pope has first sought to renew the way the synods of bishops are conducted, starting with the Synod on the Family, which was celebrated in two stages. The renewal continued with the Synod on Young People, which is integral to the 2021–23 Synod, whose very theme is ecclesial synodality: For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission.
At the level of practice, the most important change is the strengthening of the phase of listening to the people of God, as evidenced by the two questionnaires of the Synod on the Family, the preassembly of the youth synod, the involvement of more than eighty thousand people in the local churches and the 270 preparatory meetings for the Amazon synod, and the broad involvement of all the faithful in dioceses throughout the world for the 2021– 23 Synod.
The working dynamic during the synodal assemblies has been reshaped into a spiritual experience, aimed at discerning the voice of the Spirit in the moments of listening and the work of the circuli minores.
The Pope has also urged the local churches to promote local synodal processes, which have been especially evident in Germany, Italy, Australia, and Latin America. Some documents also contain clear statements showing the links between “church reform,” “pastoral conversion”, and “synodality” and illustrating the changes in mentality, practices, and structures that are needed to achieve a meaningful synodal experience capable of promoting the necessary ecclesial renewal.
In his “Address on the Occasion of the Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops” (October 17, 2015), Pope Francis stated clearly, “The path of synodality is the path that God expects from the Church of the third millennium”. An especially significant document is the apostolic constitution The Name of the Church Is “Synod” Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the then secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, holds Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “Christus Vivit” (Christ Lives).
The document contains the Pope’s reflections on the 2018 Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment. Episcopalis Communio (2018), 12 in which Pope Francis clearly distinguishes between “episcopal collegiality” and “ecclesial synodality”. He situates the Synod of Bishops within the broader horizon of synodality as a form of Church.
Understood as a modus vivendi et operandi of the whole people of God, synodality requires other moments and institutions that allow for greater participation in the making of decisions. “The Synod of Bishops is the point of convergence of this dynamic of listening, which is conducted at all levels of the life of the Church.”
However, synodality is not reducible to synodal events involving a few bishops advising the Pope, nor does it simply mean inviting a few lay representatives and ordained ministers to take part in diocesan synods that remain extraordinary events in the life of the local Church. Rather, synodality must permeate all contexts of “becoming Church”, from local churches to the universal Church.
Synodality demands rethinking and revitalising all the participatory and representative structures of the various components of the people of God; and it must do so in all the different contexts in which the Church expresses its life, conducts its research, and coordinates its actions, from pastoral councils to episcopal conferences.
The Reception of Vatican II
The document of the International Theological Commission, “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church,” published in 2018, offers the most articulate and complete framework for understanding synodality.
It provides the theological presuppositions flowing from scripture and ecclesial tradition; it clarifies the pertinent terms and concepts and distinguishes synodality from collegiality, participation, communion, and co-responsibility; it treats the ways in which synodality should be implemented and describes the spirituality that should characterise all ecclesial subjects involved in synodal events and processes.
Constantly referring to the Second Vatican Council, the document “puts forward the theological foundations of synodality in conformity with the ecclesiological doctrine of Vatican II, linking them with the perspective of the pilgrim and missionary people of God and with the mystery of Church as communion, in relation to the Church’s distinctive characteristics: unity, holiness, Catholicity and apostolicity. Lastly it goes into the link between the participation of all the members of the people of God in the mission of the Church and the exercise of authority by their pastors”.
Systematic theology’s reflections on the synodal Church and on the changes to be made in the forma ecclesiae and pastoral practices so that synodality characterises the Church at all levels, constitute a key element for the reception of Vatican II and for the hermeneutics of the conciliar documents. It is true that the term synodality is absent from the corpus of the texts of Vatican II; the documents speak only of the “Synod of Bishops” (CD 5) and “episcopal collegiality” (LG 22, CD 36).
Nevertheless, working for and as a “synodal church” allows us to bring to fulfilment the ecclesiological vision of Lumen Gentium, some principles of which have been “suspended” or “contravened” in the last few decades (for example, the relationship between collegiality and primacy, the agency of local churches as subjects, and the Church as “people of God” as the guiding vision of the Council’s ecclesiology).
With the drafting of Christus Dominus 5 by the Council, after the publication of Apostolica Sollicitudo by Paul VI on September 15, 1965, the Synod of Bishops came to be understood as an instrument at the service of the Petrine primacy and not as an expression of episcopal collegiality, as some council fathers had hoped.
These developments contributed to divorcing the activity of the Synod of Bishops from the usual dynamics of the life of the local churches. The construction site of the reception of Vatican II is still open: the ecclesiological vision proposed in chapter II of the Constitution on the Church has not yet been fully accepted either in its main lines—the self-understanding of the Church as the people of God, the relationship between pastors and the faithful, and so forth—or in its pastoral implications.
The reform desired by the Council is still incomplete. Synodality allows and seeks the active participation of all the christifideles, as indicated by Lumen Gentium 12, and it encourages the development of an ecclesiology from the local churches.
Synodality inspires cooperation between laity and ordained ministers in carrying out the ecclesial mission, and it calls for overcoming the hierarchical, pyramidal vision that marked the second millennium of the Church’s history.
Since the 1990s, the hermeneutics of the pontifical magisterium has undoubtedly stressed a universalist perspective, adopting a christological interpretation of the ministry and action of bishops and priests vis-à-vis the people of God.
It has shown a preference for the more generic notion of communio, to the detriment of the category “people of God” chosen by Vatican II, as well as to the detriment of the theology of the local Church. The option for synodality expressed by Pope Francis is helping to define a new phase in the reception of Vatican II and in the implementation of its demands for reform.
A synodal form of Church
“There can be no life of the Church, no expression of ecclesial being, except as a synodal event”. These words declaring synodality to be an essential element of the Church’s nature raise important questions: What are the reasons for affirming that synodality is an inherent dimension of ecclesial life or that the synodal form is a basic form of Church? Why has this central feature of ecclesial existence been forgotten for centuries?
To answer these questions, we need ecclesiological reflection that involves systematic theology but is open to the contributions of sociology and the philosophy of language. “Synodality” is an abstract concept with various meanings: “the idea of synodality has been widely studied and has been defined in a thousand ways” (S. Dianich). It is sometimes considered to be “a property of the Church that derives from its communal nature” (A. Borras); at other times it is related directly to “collegiality”, even though the subjects of synodality (the whole people of God) are different from the subjects of collegiality (the bishops).
“Synodality” must also be distinguished from other concepts such as communion, participation, co-responsibility, sharing, and listening. These are all aspects of the dynamic that characterises the synodal form of Church, but they cannot be identified with synodality.
Etymologically, the Greek word syn/odos signifies a “journey made together” or, more literally, a “shared path”. It thus refers to the dynamic relationship that exists among several subjects who are working together to reach a destination.
Synodality has always been present in the Church’s history, and this “walking together” has taken various concrete forms. In the course of time, different subjects have been seen as primarily responsible for exercising the dynamic by which the Church tackles difficult problems, corrects erroneous teachings, and heal intra-ecclesial divisions. How should we understand “synodality” now in the twenty-first century, in the light of Vatican II and its ecclesiology?
A Constitutive Dimension and a Unique Dynamic
It may be useful first to consider the adjective synodal rather than the abstract noun synodality as we bear in mind the Council’s ecclesiological affirmations regarding the constitutive principle (proclamation), the subjects, and the dynamics of development.
These themes are treated not only in Lumen Gentium but also in Ad Gentes, Dei Verbum, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and Gaudium et Spes (chapter IV). When we speak of “synodal form”, we are referring to an “essential dimension” of Church, as the document of the International Theological Commission makes clear: it concerns the very nature and dynamic of the relationships that constitute the Church.
It is therefore not enough to refer simply to “communion” because in the synodal form of church, the very processes of institutionalisation are at stake. Synodality entails the “historical making” of the “ecclesial ‘We’”, a collective subject that comes alive in the communicational dynamics of faith and through a distinctive interaction between the empirical level of ecclesial life and the mystical, eschatological level.
The Church has a communal essence and exists in synodal forms; synodality is the Church’s modus vivendi et operandi. These various aspects, which are distinguishable but not separable, are kept closely interconnected by the communicational dynamics of faith.
Communion functions at the level of the essential interior dynamic characterising relations with God, between persons, and between local churches. Synodality has to do with the empirically observable processes of communication, discernment, decision-making, and collective implementation.
Ecclesial communion is born from the acceptance of the announcement of salvation (see Acts 2; 1 John 1:1–4; LG 17), and it thrives by the ongoing dynamic of communication of faith and in faith among believers, ranging from catechesis to eucharistic liturgy and from pastoral assemblies to serving the needs of others.
Synodality is not simply an expression of “church communion”; it is the specific form and dynamic of the life and action of the ecclesial body, a communion that derives from a communicational dynamic and that prospers by the mutual communication among all Christians.
The two texts of Vatican II in which this dynamic of “becoming Church” is expounded are Lumen Gentium 12, on the prophetic munus of the people of God, and Dei Verbum 8, on the subjects involved in the development of the Traditio Ecclesiae.
These texts conceive the Church as constructed jointly by all the christifideles, with their different charisms and ministries: all the faithful are subjects of the word, starting from the obedience of faith to the gospel received.
Serena Noceti is an Italian lay theologian, a full professor at the Religious Sciences Institute in Florence, and a teacher at the theological faculty of central Italy. She is a founding member of the Association of Italian Women Theologians and former vice president of the Italian Theological Association.
Extract taken with kind permission from her new release: Reforming the Church: A Synodal Way of Proceeding. Available to buy at paulistpress.com
