Though the primary phase of the Catholic Church’s two-year-long Synod on Synodality convened by Pope Francis only led to mid-August, “We will already see the fruits of the synodal process,” Cardinal Mario Grech, the final secretary of the synod, told America’s Vatican correspondent, Gerard O’Connell, in an exclusive interview conducted for America’s “Contained in the Vatican” podcast on the Jesuit Curia in Rome on Sept. 14.
Cardinal Grech gave the interview before leaving Rome for 2 weeks starting today, Sept. 21, with a team of 35 people “summoned from all continents” to review and analyze the feedback from the primary phase, also referred to as the consultation phase, of the synodal process.
Within the interview, Cardinal Grech spoke about what has been already achieved on this process and his hopes for each the synod’s second phase—the “continental assemblies” that may happen from January to March 2023—and its third phase, the “assembly of bishops” that shall be held within the Vatican in October 2023. He spoke, too, concerning the role his office plays within the synodal process, and the substantial changes introduced by Pope Francis regarding the aim and work of that office, not least of which include its name change from the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops to, simply, the General Secretariat of the Synod.
A synod without an end
Since we met on the eve of the second anniversary of his succeeding Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri as general secretary on Sept. 15, 2020, I started by asking him to explain the situation on the secretariat when he took over. He responded by first paying tribute to “my predecessor and his team,” saying that due to their work, Pope Francis was in a position to promulgate the Apostolic Structure, “Episcopal Communion” (Episcopalis Communio) on Sept. 15, 2018, the 53rd anniversary of the institution of the synod of bishops by Pope Paul VI.
He emphasized that the structure is of fundamental importance in explaining “the character of the synod and the mandate of our secretariat” and said, “It shouldn’t be a dead letter, and it’s our duty to proceed, with the assistance of the Holy Father, to interpret and put into practice this document.” Furthermore, he said, “it’s due to Episcopalis Communio if we today…see [that] the synod shouldn’t be an event celebrated once every three years but is a process: a process that has a starting but, imagine me, I don’t think could have an end, even the current synod that we’re celebrating.”
“The synod shouldn’t be an event celebrated once every three years but is a process: a process that has a starting but, imagine me, I don’t think could have an end.”
When he took over as general secretary, the secretariat had 14 staff members, but that has since been reduced to 12 because two retired. To deal with an expanding workload, the cardinal created a “coordinating team” of “individuals who aren’t on the office but are at all times on call and meet to debate the vision and the implementation of Episcopalis Communio.” He also created 4 commissions: “the Theological Commission, because we want a sound theological backup; the Spiritual Commission, because synodality is at the beginning a spiritual experience; the Methodological Commission, because we want a technique; and the Communications Commission.” In these 4 commissions, “there are around 80 people, coming from different nations and different continents, working in their very own countries.” There’s ongoing interchange between them and the secretariat, and, through them, “what’s discussed or planned within the central office goes back to the actual churches [that is, dioceses] or Episcopal Conferences.”
A synod not just for bishops
Cardinal Grech underlined that “the pope is the pinnacle of our secretariat, we respond on to him, and that’s why I’m called general secretary.” I noted that he was originally known as general secretary of the Synod of Bishops but, within the pope’s recent structure for the Roman Curia, the central offices of the Vatican, that went into effect June 5, the term “bishops” appears to have disappeared from his title and that of the secretariat. Asked to elucidate the importance of this, the cardinal said, “The word ‘Bishops’ has disappeared from the title, but they’re still a significant partner in the method.” He said the explanation for the change is that “this particular synod that we’re celebrating, which was inaugurated in October 2021 and could have a vital phase, the Assembly for Bishops, in October 2023, shouldn’t be exactly a synod for bishops but is a synod for the entire church.”
As such, he said, “the primary phase, which we now have just concluded in mid-August, was once called a ‘preparatory phase,’ nevertheless it shouldn’t be a preparatory phase [for a meeting of bishops], it is an element of this synodal process.” Likewise, the means of discernment “shouldn’t be limited to the assembly for bishops, what was once called the Synod of Bishops. No, this discernment began from the actual churches where all of the people of God, all of the baptized, were invited to contribute. Moreover, since the church has no limits, even those that aren’t baptized but are of excellent will may also be listened to.”
Referring to the interreligious dimension of the synod, he revealed that one episcopal conference, in its synthesis that was submitted to the Vatican, reported that “in our country, we now have a big community of Muslims, but a bunch of them call themselves ‘Christ,’” and so the conference invited them to participate. Cardinal Grech remarked, “They admire Jesus a lot that although they’re Muslims, they’ve this interest in Jesus, so what should keep us from listening to them as well?”
A ‘discernment,’ not a synthesis
“This primary phase is [made up of] a consultation and a discernment,” the Maltese cardinal said. He explained, “The local bishop who’s accountable for the community has this task: to hearken to all, then to make an ecclesial discernment, after which to pass on the conclusions to the Episcopal Conference. There the bishops together are invited to make an additional discernment,” after which “we now have the outcomes of this consultation phase.”
He said he prefers to call the outcomes of this primary phase “a discernment” fairly than a synthesis, “because a synthesis shouldn’t be a theological concept …. Discernment shouldn’t be carried out with sociological criteria.”
Cardinal Grech hailed the feedback from the primary phase as “historic,” because “already 111 out of the 114 bishops’ conferences have sent the outcomes of the consultation to the secretariat.” He noted that “in past synods there was not this high percentage of contribution.” Conflicts or turmoil of their countries prevented the opposite three conferences from submitting responses, he stated.
“Already 111 out of the 114 bishops’ conferences have sent the outcomes of the consultation to the secretariat.”
“Considering that is the primary time that we carried out this wide consultation, the outcomes are very positive,” he said. “We aren’t after numbers. But what really is interesting is the best way that, if not all, at the least the bulk drafted this report. It shows they took this process very seriously. They really tried to have interaction not only themselves, but in addition the communities. I believe that someday when they appear back, they would really like to have had more time in order that they may include others,” the cardinal said.
“There have been instances initially when there have been bishops and communities who had doubts, or were calling for more explanation, so that they took [more] time to start out. Again, that was a negative factor because then they found themselves out of time,” he said. He said that point limitations, together with the pandemic and other concerns, led some bishops to request an extension to the consultation phase, which was originally set to finish in April 2022. With Pope Francis’ approval, it was prolonged to August.
Cardinal Grech also said he was impressed with the outcomes from places where communication is difficult. “One in every of the members on the synod council is from Africa, and once we had the last meeting, he told us ‘I needed to get a generator,’ since it was a web-based meeting,” the cardinal remarked. “This says quite a bit. Nonetheless, they’ve managed to achieve out to an excellent number of individuals.”
The cardinal is especially struck by the African participants’ “enthusiasm” and “the best way they discuss this experience. They speak with passion, with enthusiasm. They would really like to go on. I mean, although formally this primary phase was concluded by mid-August, it doesn’t mean that the method that began in October 2021 has stopped. And that is something that folks are asking for as well; there may be this claim from the people of God. They’re saying, ‘Listen, it has been such a really interesting ecclesial experience, we would really like to proceed, to go forth.’”
In Frascati, drafting the primary global synthesis
The following task facing Cardinal Grech’s office is to research the reports which have are available in from all over the world. Cardinal Grech revealed that to do that, he and “a bunch of 35 people” will go to Frascati, a town about an hour’s drive southeast of Rome, for the subsequent two weeks starting today, Sept. 21.
“We’re going to convene in a house in Frascati to read all these reports and make a synodal discernment in order that we are able to draft the primary document that then will go to the continental phase,” the cardinal said. He underlined that “It’s the primary time that we’re holding this [kind of] communal discernment. Previously, the synthesis was carried out by one or by two [people] at most, but we took this recent initiative.”
“It’s the primary time that we’re holding this [kind of] communal discernment. Previously, the synthesis was carried out by one or by two [people] at most, but we took this recent initiative.”
The group of 35 is “a combination” of spiritual and laypeople, men and ladies, with only two bishops, “coming from different continents, because I think that it’s one thing to read the text with the lens of a European and one other thing to read the identical text from the perspective of an African or an Asian or Latin American. So we’re going to be together for 2 weeks and hopefully, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, we are going to manage to make a report.” He said the team will draft the report, and “for the last two days of the meeting, the [roughly 15] members of the synod council will join us.” The synod council is a bunch of bishops elected in the course of the last atypical synod, which on this case was the 2018 Synod on Young People.
A ‘circularity’ of listening and discerning
The council will then approve the document, which shall be sent to Pope Francis for his approval before the text is published. After that, the cardinal said, the document shall be sent to each diocesan bishop. “We’re inviting every bishop to convene his church, and specifically, his consulting bodies, namely, the presbyterate council, the diocesan pastoral council, the synodal equipe of his diocese to read this document,” the cardinal said. He gave two reasons for this: “To begin with, to see whether his church is present, to see if the document reflects his church,” and second, “in order that every local church could be aware [of] what other churches are saying.”
Explaining the reasoning behind this process, the cardinal said, “Even here we are attempting to place into place this idea of circularity” or feedback, to emphasise that “this shouldn’t be a document coming from Rome; it’s the document coming from the actual churches.”
He described this as “a second listening, but not a fresh one.” After that, each bishop will communicate to his episcopal conference whether his local church approves the document or has things so as to add. These will then be sent from the bishops’ conference to the continental synodal assemblies.
Cardinal Grech said he hopes that “by the tip of October the document shall be published,” and that he’ll find a way “to speak it to all bishops.” That way, the bishops could have some months to review and discuss it before they take part in the continental assemblies, in the primary three months of 2023.
Part II explains the continental assemblies in fuller depth. It is going to be published tomorrow, Sept. 22.
Update 09/26/2022 11:19 a.m.: This text has been edited to repair a transcription error (“vision” fairly than “division”) and to make clear a quote.
