Dialoguing with probably the most incoherent document ever sent out from Rome – Catholic World Report

Shortly before his death two weeks ago, Cardinal George Pell wrote an essay lambasting what he described as “some of the incoherent documents ever sent out from Rome.”

Noted researcher and professor of sociology Mark Regnerus recently shredded the methodology utilized in creating the document in query, saying it “reads like a wish list of frustrated reformists who’ve shifted the preferential option away from the poor and toward ‘the young’ and the culturally alienated…”

And in a November 2022 piece analyzing the identical document, Fr. Raymond de Souza identified quite a few concerns with each its content and its creators, highlighting “laziness,” the “conflating” of reports by supposed “experts,” and the “idiosyncratic use of Scripture.”

The Synodal context (and process) for a Synod on Synodality

The document is the Working Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) of the 2023 Synod on Synodality. The 45-page, 15,000+ word text, published October 28 of last 12 months, is ostensibly a synthesis and/or summary of discussions with Catholics (laity, clergy, religious) who took part in first stage—named “listening and discernment”—of the Synod on Synodality, which can stretch into 2024. The DCS is the point of interest of the second and current “continental” stage, which runs until the top of March 2023. In June 2023, the Synod’s “Instrumentum laboris” might be released; it’s official working document (‘instrument’) for the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which can meet for nearly all of October 2023 (Oct 4-29), after which meet again in October 2024.

The DCS, in brief, provides the content for the following two years of “synodal process.” It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of “process” in the complete synodal, well, process. For instance, the shorter 2021 Preparatory Document, which essentially established the rules for the DCS, explains:

The power to assume a special future for the Church and her institutions, in line with the mission she has received, depends largely on the choice to initiate processes of listening, dialogue, and community discernment, during which each and every one can participate and contribute.

And the DCS states:

The vision of a Church able to radical inclusion, shared belonging, and deep hospitality in line with the teachings of Jesus is at the guts of the synodal process…

Together, the 2 documents discuss with process(es) over 60 times, with the DCS using it 44 times. It’s hardly surprising, then, that when papal biographer Austen Ivereigh wrote a slightly giddy piece—“I helped write the primary global synod document. Here’s what we heard from Catholics all over the world.”—for America magazine, published concurrently with the DCS release, that the word “process(es)” appears sixteen times. The importance of the term, in line with Ivereigh, one in every of 26 “experts” who worked for 2 weeks in creating the DCS, is the next:

Some might be surprised that the document doesn’t go more deeply into the problems that the synod raised but leaves them hanging, noting the disagreements where they exist and welcoming them to be wrestled with. Many of the document is given over to not the problems but to “process.” Process, in any case, is the purpose of a synod on synodality, and it’s where the document breaks necessary latest ground by harvesting and giving expression to the need within the reports for a synodal way of proceeding. Hence the dream within the report from religious superiors of “a worldwide and synodal church that lives unity in diversity” and that adds, “God is preparing something latest, and we must collaborate.”

Process, in any case, is the purpose of a synod on synodality.

What, exactly, does that mean? And what does it must do with evangelization, witness, holiness, the role of the laity, the sacramental work of clergy, the connection of all Catholics to divine revelation and authentic ecclesial authority?

Competing understandings of the Church?

Some useful headway into that and related questions might be present in an essay written in late 2021—that’s, a 12 months before the discharge of DCS—by Dr. Nicholas J. Healy, Jr.

The essay, titled “Communion, Sacramental Authority, and the Limits of Synodality”, is an element of a Communio issue (Winter 2021) focused on synodality. Considered one of Healy’s central concerns is the contrast between the “ecclesiology of communion,” so strongly and consistently presented within the documents of the Second Vatican Council (and emphasized again in the 1985 Synod of Bishops, under St. John Paul II) and the recent shift and powerful emphasis on a “synodal ecclesiology,” which dominated the second half of the Final Report for the Synod of Bishops on youth, released in October 2018. (That Report drew upon the March 2018 International Theological Commission text “Synodality within the Life and Mission of the Church”, which in turn was apparently inspired to a point by earlier remarks made by Pope Francis in regards to the need for a “Synodal Church”.)

One problem, as Healy explains, is that “synodality” and related terms have been utilized in so some ways lately that it’s becoming difficult to see the forest for the synodalities. As Healy observes, “the recent history of the concept of synodality begins with a priority to implement the teaching of Lumen gentium on collegiality…” but now “the brand new idea is that the entire Church is constitutively and essentially synodal.”

So, as an example, the ITC document strongly emphasized throughout the vital place and role of the hierarchy in synodality, insisting “The synodal process must happen at the guts of a hierarchically structured community” (par 69). The DCS, in contrast, only mentions “hierarchy” 3 times, and in two of those instances there may be an overtly negative forged, as when an example of “the persistence of structural obstacles” is identified as “hierarchical structures that foster autocratic tendencies…” The correct authority of the hierarchy, rooted in apostolic authority and (in Healy’s words) “the sacramental grace of apostolic office”, is hardly noted (if in any respect) within the DCS.

The impression given, the truth is, is that the Church is continually evolving and horizontal society—the “people of God”, in fact—animated by countless dialogue, continual complaining, and an eclectic number of victimhoods. (Or, as Regnerus writes: “Empirically, the vagueness within the DCS is symptomatic of the usage of participatory motion research, a ‘method’ of sorts that’s light on rigor and heavy on fostering social change.”)

The “various documents on synodality or the synodal process,” notes Healy, “are surprisingly silent on the precise vocation of the laity.” Further,

the synodal process, as described within the relevant documents, seems liable to a subtle “clericalization” of the laity, within the sense that their contribution to the life and mission of the Church is measured by the extent of their involvement with tasks which can be specific to the hierarchical ministry of the Church.

This continues apace within the DCS. When “laity” are mentioned, it is sort of at all times within the service of criticism: the laity are passive and distant from the clergy (#19), victims of clericalism #58), overburdened (#66), not allowed to do more within the parish (#68, 91), and being kept from opportunities to do more (#100). (This topic is of specific interest to me, as I’ve written about the role of the laity as articulated in each Vatican II documents and John Paul II’s 1988 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Christifideles Laici” and was the writer of the Study Guide for Bishop Robert Barron’s excellent “Priest Prophet King” video series.)

Some synodally-inspired questions

Far more context could possibly be given, but I need to present a series of questions on the DCS, drawn from my several readings of it.

First, let’s quickly note that the DCS refers to “the dear legacy of the Second Vatican Council to which we’re called to look as we have a good time its sixtieth anniversary” (#101). Also take note that the ICL document states, “Although synodality just isn’t explicitly found as a term or as an idea within the teaching of Vatican II, it’s fair to say that synodality is at the guts of the work of renewal the Council was encouraging” (#6).

Yet there could be very little in the handfuls of pages of the DCS that refers directly and even not directly to the documents of the Council. One would think that Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Structure on the Church) and Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Structure on the Church within the Modern World) might warrant mention. Not so. In any respect.

The overarching “icon” (to make use of Ivereigh’s term) for the Church is that of “tent”, drawing upon Isaiah 54:2. Why this curious selection, because the Recent Testament doesn’t discuss with the Church as a tent, nor does Vatican II? Ivereigh says the concept “arose” among the many august group at the top of their first week, and “struck us as an ideal metaphor” for what the people of God were calling for…” How, I ponder, does that square with St. Jerome’s commentary on the verse: “Anyone who’s in a tent does have a secure and everlasting dwelling but is at all times changing places and hurrying on to the following…”? Or is that precisely the purpose? (Fr. de Souza notes the irony of the proven fact that “the enlarged tent of Isaiah 54 is a picture of Israel subduing the enemies on her borders; enlarging the tent is more a picture of conquering, not walking together.”)

Actually, isn’t this use of an obscure Old Testament verse greater than a bit like “The Prayer of Jabez” being touted because the Biggest Prayer within the Bible, when Jesus left the Apostles and the Church a prayer?

Moreover, throughout the DCS the Church is described almost exclusively as “the people of God” (or as a “tent”). Why so? Is it because “the people of God”, while quite biblical and a wealthy description when used and understood accurately, the popular term for those prefer to see the Church in political and horizontal terms, as Cardinal Ratzinger noted years ago?

So, why is “people of God” used 26 times to discuss with the Church, but “Mystical Body of Christ” or “Body of Christ” never used? Especially when that term is used more often within the Vatican II documents than “people of God”? And used throughout the Recent Testament? Why the large disparity? And why is the Church never described as “the household of God”? Or the “temple of the Holy Spirit”? (See Lumen Gentium, 6, for some Church Names/Descriptives 101.)

Why is “experience” such a heavily repeated theme of the document, appearing over 60 times? And why do the terms “holiness” and “virtue” appear a combined total of zero times? The “journey” is referred to 37 times, however the words “heaven,” “glory,” and “beatific” appear exactly zero times. What’s the journey to? For what purpose? Why is there virtually no sense of an eschatological dimension to synodality because the DCS presents it?

Is there a very good reason that “listen” and “listening” appear over fifty times, while “repent”, and “repentance” never appear? Not even once? “Conversion” does appear over a dozen times, as in “a journey of conversion,” “missionary synodal conversion,” “the trail of conversion toward a synodal Church,” “a broader and deeper conversion of attitudes and structures,” and so forth. What, exactly, is that this conversion? To what? For what?

We read that “the message of the Gospel that the Church is charged to proclaim must also convert the structures of sin that hold humanity and creation captive.” The word “structure(s)” is used over thirty times. Are partitions included in these structures? Are bridges? Each are structures, so clarification is appreciated.

Also, that’s the only time “sin” appears. How do “structures” confess sin? How do structures “convert”? And because the word/idea of “confession” never appears, should we assume that while structures can “convert,” they’re unable to admit?

Back to sin: the document also never refers to “evil” or “transgressions” or “iniquity” or anything similar. Why not?

And if sin is seemingly such a small matter, to what should we attribute the multitude of ills, gripes, whines, complaints, and diverse grievances mentioned or alluded to throughout the document? For instance, account for the calls to “change” Church teaching, for “cultural change,” “change of mindset”, and “climate change”? Oops, that last one appears twice, which is strictly two times greater than “penance” and “mortification” and related words combined.

After which there may be talk of “more meaningful dialogue” and “a more welcoming space” for many who “feel a tension between belonging to the Church and their very own loving relationships, akin to: remarried divorcees, single parents, people living in a polygamous marriage, LGBTQ people, etc.” Is there an expectation that the Church can and can change her teachings about sexuality, chastity, and marriage? Is there an assumption that the Church’s teachings on these matters is simply too hard? Inconceivable? Old-fashioned? Not engaged with enough “processes”?

Perhaps I’m making an excessive amount of of numbers and words and never enough about processes and structures. But in a document of some 15,000 words that’s in regards to the Church, churchiness, the laity, evangelization, and living as a Catholic, it’s striking that the terms “process” (44) and “dialogue” (31) appear quite a number of more times than does “worship” (0), “praise” (0), and “thanksgiving” (0).

Yes, liturgy is mentioned, because it “brings the community together”, there may be a “deep link between synodality and liturgy” (someway shown form in “the aim of belonging”), and it noted that since women attend liturgy greater than men, they ought to be allowed to do more at liturgy (par 61). Do any Catholics quoted within the DCS think liturgy may need something to with their eschatological end? Everlasting communion with the Triune God? Now that I’ve mentioned it: there isn’t any mention of God as Trinitarian or Triune, nor any reference to “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

To be fair, the document just isn’t a theological treatise. It acknowledges that it “just isn’t a document of the Church’s Magisterium, neither is it the report of a sociological survey; it doesn’t offer the formulation of operational indications, goals and objectives, nor a full elaboration of a theological vision.” Nonetheless, it then states that “it’s theological within the sense that it’s loaded with the exquisitely theological treasure contained within the experience of listening to the voice of the Spirit enacted by the People of God, allowing its sensus fidei to emerge” (#8).

That’s debatable, to place it kindly. I respectfully suggest that the late Cardinal Pell was fallacious: this just isn’t “some of the incoherent documents ever sent out from Rome.” It is probably the most incoherent document to come back out of Rome.

He was absolutely correct, nonetheless, in stating: “This working document needs radical changes. The bishops must realise that there may be work to be done, in God’s name, sooner slightly than later.”