Bradford Hinze

Karl-Rahner-Lehrstuhl of Fordham University in New York.

 The German Synodal Way is a promising experiment that offers a unique validation of Pope Francis’s advocacy of synodality through its own approach to communal discernment and decision making. The challenge is whether the concerns and criticisms raised by key curial officials, if not by Francis himself, about how prophetic teaching authority is being exercised in this experiment can be adjudicated with the convictions of the participants in a way that affirms the integrity of the process being employed.

Path of synodality

In 2013 Pope Francis raised the rhetorical question with members of the Latin American Bishops Conference that he collaborated with in preparing the Aparecida Document: “Is pastoral discernment a habitual criterion through the use of diocesan councils? Do such councils… provide real opportunities for lay people to participate in pastoral consultation, organization and planning?” The Pope’s response: “I believe that on this score, we are far behind.” In EvangeliiGaudium he urged Catholics to learn from the Greek Orthodox Church about their experience of synodality. In 2015 on the anniversary of the Synod of Bishops Francis said: “From the beginning of my ministry as Bishop of Rome, I sought to enhance the Synod, which is one of the most precious legacies of the Second Vatican Council… it is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church in the third millennium.”

What is Distinctive About the German Synodal Way?

The “synodal way” is a group of 230 people gathered to discuss what they see as some of the most pressing issues facing the Catholic Church in Germany. The group includes every German bishop, plus representatives from religious orders, lay movements, dioceses and parishes, universities, consultants from other churches and experts in the fields being discussed.

These concerns in large measure pertain to “the consultative clause” in the code of canon law that permits and thereby fosters consultation, but also mandates that one person (for example, priest in relation to parish pastoral councils, bishops in diocesan pastoral councils and diocesan synods) or a collective body (the episcopal conference in cases of plenary councils) will make final binding judgments and decisions in conjunction with an assembly as articulated in the code of canon law in (the Pope at a synod of bishops, unless an exception has been made, CIC 343), those who are not Bishops and yet are called to participate in particular councils only have a consultative vote (443 § 3); participants at arch/diocesan pastoral councils and synods only have a consultative vote (466), priests with their ordinary only have consultative vote in presbyteral councils (500.2), participants at arch/diocesan pastoral councils only have consultative votes (514), and the pastor makes the decisions with parishioners participating in pastoral and finance councils who only have consultative votes (536).

The German Synodal Way offers three areas of promise and one disputed issue.

The Promise

First, the German Synodal Way offers a distinctive experimental process of discernment and decision-making in the exercise of the prophetic office of teaching in the church. It is unique in the way it engages together three sets of actors—theologians, lay people, and Bishops—in processes of naming and analyzing the particular challenges in the church on a particular topic and developing constructive responses.

Ground breaking theological discovery

My appreciation of the German Synodal Way is based on a ground breaking theological discovery and argument that provides the basic justification for the involvement of the three sets of actors. This has been advanced especially by Ormond Rush who identifies the sense of faith of all the faithful, the magisterium, and the theologians as involved in the one teaching office in the church based on the prophetic office of Jesus Christ.

Peter De Mey has demonstrated that Vatican II documents operated with a bi-polar approach to circularity between bishops and pastors in Dei Verbum §§ 7-10, and between the hierarchy and the people of God in Lumen Gentium in §§ 12 and 25. However, as Rush has documented in his treatment of the relation of the Magisterium and Theologians in The Vision of Vatican II: Its Fundamental Principles that although the documents of Vatican II depended upon a dynamic collaboration between bishops and theologians in the development of the documents, there is very little mention of the role of theologians in the one teaching office of the church in these documents. This is an enigma since theologians have been widely recognized as active agents collaborating with curial cardinals and bishops in drafting the Vatican II documents and in the process of revision. However, their agential role in this epic exercise of formulating these documents was not explicitly incorporated into the doctrine of the prophetic office in these documents.

Second, by taking responsibility together as active agents in a synodal way, bishops, theologians, and lay people are being summoned to cultivate and exercise the praxis of attentiveness and responsiveness to the work of the Spirit in the sense of the faithful and in the laments of the faithful.

Social imaginary

The German Synodal Way is not only focused on naming problems and diagnosing the causes of those problems. It is especially searching for ways to address these issues. This kind of approach calls to mind an argument made by Ignacio Ellacuría shortly before he was martyred. Based on his years of experience as professor and rector at the University of Central America, he reasoned that the church, theologians, and universities must engage in propheticism in naming and analyzing contemporary problems, but this must be combined with a utopian vision. Now instead of using the term utopias, which can be confusing, contested, and unconvincing, I would restate his claim. Prophetic responsiveness to the laments of the faithful requires honest diagnoses of problems caused by individuals and structural and systemic failures. But such a diagnosis must also be combined with the use of the productive imagination that draws on a living tradition of faith, and an evolving social imaginary that combines communal narratives, aesthetic and cultural resources, and proposals for structural change. This particular way of praxis comes to light and is tested through communal discernment and decision-making. This is the approach being advanced by the German Synodal Way.

Third, the German Synodal Way seeks to move beyond polarization in the church by rejecting false antinomies and polarities on a variety of issues pertaining to the use of power in the church, priestly life, the role of women in ministry and office, and pertaining to various issues in gender and sexuality.

These topics are often the hot zones when it comes to polarized discourse in the church and they need not be, but we need to have efforts like the German Synodal Way to model how the church can move forward on these issues. This requires rejecting dichotomizing spiritual conversion and structural reform when addressing clericalism and hierarchicalism.

The Challenge

The German Synodal Way aims to move beyond a strict and rigid application of the consultative-only clause in canon law as it is used in discernment and decision-making bodies in the church by involving lay people, theologians, and bishops in participatory structures in the church.

The challenge has clearly been raised by the curial cardinals who voiced alarm about the German Synodal Way and by Pope Francis in his Letter to the German People which states that “synodality … [which] comes from above downward … is the only way to make mature decisions in matters essential to the faith and life of the Church.” Those involved in the Central Committee of German Catholics have consistently called for the German Synodal Way to adhere to a binding synodal process, which means that everyone involved in the synodal way would vote and these votes would determine decisive courses of action that would bear upon the life and praxis of the German Church and particular churches. This course of action was modified in order to satisfy the demands of curial officials to the regret of some on the Central Committee.