The synod’s final document that came out on 25 October in 42 pages does not contain any revolutionary decision on women and their ordination. But it would be myopic not to see the radical change of perspective with respect to the deconstruction of the view of the church as a conversation. The document said, “Only in this way can the Church truly become a ‘conversation’ within herself and with the world (cf. Ecclesiam suam 67), walking side by side with every human being in the style of Jesus.” The final statement says, “The church moves from the ‘I’ to the ‘we’ and places us at the service of the world.” Michael Bakthin writes, “To be means to communicate dialogically. When dialogue ends, everything ends. Thus dialogue, by its very essence, cannot and must not come to an end. At the level of his religious-utopian worldview.”
Dostoevsky carries dialogue into eternity, conceiving of it as “an eternal co-rejoicing, co-admiration, con-cord… A single voice ends nothing and resolves nothing. Two voices is the minimum for life, the minimum for existence.”
Fr.Dario Vitali said in the general congregation of the Synod: “We all know that the chapter on Populo Dei represents the ‘Copernican revolution’ of conciliar ecclesiology.”… “The greatest title of belonging to the Church is not to be pope, nor bishop, nor priest, nor consecrated, but a son of God.” The revolution is in the “equality of the children of God.” Now on any ecclesial gathering that expresses the carnival of human authority, “Christianity explicitly wants to intensify passion to its highest, but passion is subjectivity, and objectively it does not exist at all.”… “Carnival with all its images, indecencies and curses affirms the people’s immortal, indestructible character. In the world of carnival the awareness of the people’s immortality is combined with the realisation that established authority and truth are relative.” Carnival is, primarily, a ‘strategy of negation’, an attempt to assert the human spirit over the forces of centralisation. ‘The Gospel is upside-down foolishness only to those who reject it, whether they be the peasants or the powerful,’ he argues. ‘Believers are indeed fools, but only to the falsely wise who are too proud to wear the mask of the Author and Finisher of their salvation.’ ‘The Gospels are also carnival. The language of the parables and of the Beatitudes would substantiate the claim, too. The last shall be first. The concept of carnival, then, is not just ideological, a reaction against the authorities. Like dialogue, it forges a link between social being and artistic expression. The self-emptying Christ of Philippians 2 can be the pattern for author and reader alike. ‘To be artistically interested is to be interested, independently of meaning, in a life that is in principle consummated. I have to withdraw from myself, in order to free the hero for unconstrained plot movement in the world. The sense of faith an integral attitude towards a higher and ultimate value… The type of people who cannot live without an ultimate value and yet at the same time cannot make a final choice among values. The final choice is the sincerity to oneself which is absolute obedience to the Other of the interiority. Only then can one be an author; it is a “criterionless radical choice” like that of Abraham who chose to sacrifice Isaac. Only then can one become an apostle instead of just a genius. No form of objective truth has any rights or privileges over any other. Many so called apostles lack the standpoint and the right to make such a judgment. There are many professors of religion or professional clergy to explain away the ultimate paradox of Christianity that the eternal, essential truth has come into objective existence in time. They teach Christianity as a drop of water floating on a lotus leaf. It is a reported speech and not a witness. Religion begins to degenerate into a factional power and a force of oppression. Kierkegaard claims a “genius is born. …An Apostle is not born; an Apostle is a man called and appointed by God, receiving a mission from him. …[His authority is] something which one cannot acquire even by understanding the doctrine perfectly.”