Springtime of the Laity: The Synodal Way's Challenge

Georg Bätzing, Chairman of the German Episcopal Conference and key figure in The Synodal Way

When we think about the crisis of polarization in the Church, we often think about “right” vs “left.”  While this is often a useful spectrum, there’s more to this.  Francis has governed as a progressive, viewing himself the spiritual heir of Paul VI and the original revolution at Vatican II.  For him, the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, whatever his personal esteem (or lack thereof) of the men aside, these were detours from the real goal of Vatican II:  a modernized Christianity able to speak to modern man.  This is a known story, a popular story, and one that has a lot of truth to it.  Yet it is also a story that is incomplete.

When Jorge Bergoglio ascended the throne, he inherited a certain institutional legacy of the Church, even if he didn’t want it. Part of that legacy was a clash with his left flank, especially in the very wealthy German Church.  It has long been a goal of the German Church to use its wealth and influence to establish a distinctly German National Catholicism, still united to Rome, but defining its own parameters, including in matters of doctrine.  As has historically been the case, this vision is significantly at odds against a Catholic vision that is universal and tethered not in national identity, but in a common identity of Christianity, of which the Pope is custodian of. 

Many of the German leaders and Pope Francis had long been allies.  His papacy would never had been possibly without heavy lobbying from influential German leaders.  They expected payment when he became Pope Francis.  Yet even a sympathetic pope inherits a legacy from the previous popes, the institution of the papacy.  It was inevitable that the longer Francis was in Rome, the sooner he would come into conflict with his old allies.  This was exacerbated by his failure to deliver on things such as changing Church teaching on divorce at the Synod on the Family.  (Francis was deeply sympathetic to their desires, but through a mix of incompetence and the previously mentioned African rebellion, left the synod unsuccessful and bitter.)

The center of the conflict was over the “Synodal Way”, a conception of German Christianity that borrowed heavily from Francis’ language about synodality but had a very specifically defined end.  Francis has employed strategic ambiguity about synodality:  it is both the most important part of his pontificate, and the least defined.  It will change everything about the existence of the modern Church, but we cannot say what it will change.  It is a re-imagining of papal authority, yet what remains is an absolute monarch who uses synods as a consultative device, exactly what they have been since their reinstitution after the Second Vatican Council. 

The Germans exploited this strategic ambiguity to great effect.  What began as a behind the scenes fight burst onto the scene in 2018, as the German Bishops (combined with powerful lay associations) announced they would be using synodality to radically change Church teaching on everything from sexuality to papal authority.  In its most radical proposals, the votes of the synod would be viewed as binding on the entire German Church, even if Bishops (comprising a minority of the synod) opposed its rulings, transforming the entire German episcopacy into a ceremonial office carrying out the will of the German Synod.  In its response, Rome was left in a pickle.  Francis had to define the limits of synodality, yet announcing such limits would also inhibit his ability to use the synod as a vehicle of reform against opposition on other areas.  Rome settled on the TPS report option:  the German synod couldn’t change Church teaching, but a synod called by Rome could.  The Germans didn’t put the right version of the TPS cover sheet on their proposal.  Yet when asked to define what Rome could and couldn’t change through those synods, Rome couldn’t provide an answer.  Since Rome couldn’t provide an answer, the Germans had the initiative the entire debate.  They would go ahead with a radical plan, Rome would push back, still unable to define the limits of Synodality, just that Rome must set the limits of synodality.  Yet if synodality and discerning the Spirit is supposed to change the very way the Church experiences her mission, why must that redefinition of mission come from Rome and Rome alone?  Are there certain things that not even Rome can discern?  If so, how is that different from today?

Rome’s inability to answer these questions has transformed the strategic ambiguity around synodality into strategic paralysis.  Rather than formulate an answer, Francis delayed the original Global Synod on Synodality.  Still unable to come up with an answer, he has now proceeded to remove almost everything from discussion at the next phase of the Synod, going so far as to deliver a homily in which the synods success was to be measured not in ideas or reforms, but how we saw Christ in the other participants.  (This led to the entirely justified snark that, in the eyes of Pope Francis, the Real Synodality is the friends you make along the way.)

This story has broken into the secular world recently when Politico covered what they viewed as Pope Francis losing control of his liberal revolution.  From a secular standpoint, it’s not that bad.  It chronicles, through the experience of the German and Belgian synods, how Pope Francis lost the left flank of the Church which initially greeted his papacy with jubilation.    The thing missing from the story was the inevitability of this disappointment, as the façade Pope Francis the revolutionary crumbled, due to his own incompetence, and the impossibility of a revolution from a seat of power.  Understanding this failure is critical to understanding not just the struggles in the Church, but the long-term implications of this challenge from the Church’s left flank, a challenge that will be hard to resolve without dire consequences for the unity of the Church.  Like the African challenge, this papacy is increasingly unable to meet it.