“Trust must be mutual: decision-makers need to be able to trust and listen to the People of God” (80). This is a sentence from the post-Synodal document of 2024 on Synodality. Here is the real crisis in the Synod of bishops of the Syro-Malabar Church. The synod as a body of bishops lives in “existential solipsism,” whereby they now come to depend on the body alone. In the words of Pope Francis, when it comes to how the Church is understood, “some think that there are only bishops, the bosses, and then there are the workers.” “No, the Church is all of us, everyone, each person has their role in the Church, but we are all the Church,” he said, adding that “we must think of the Church as a living organism, composed of people who we know and with whom we walk, and not as an abstract and distant reality” (6 June 2018). “Evoking the Holy Faithful People of God is to evoke that horizon which we are invited to look at and reflect upon,” states the pope. “It is the Holy Faithful People of God that as pastors we are continually invited to look to, to protect, to accompany, to sustain and to serve.” “Let us trust that the Holy Spirit acts in and with our People and that this Spirit is not merely the ‘property’ of the ecclesial hierarchy” (19 March 2016).

The crisis of modernity is forgetfulness of the Divine, deplored and appeared as of man’s insatiable will to dominate and assert. It now appears as man’s insatiable will in the sphere of life: intellectual, political and ecclesiastical. The mistrust of the will to rule is a kind of original sin. Such a mentality rules the Synod to the effect that it loses the authority of common sense and they believe to be above the common sense. What is common sense? A primary school student makes an addition 47+52=92; how do we know the right answer? There is nothing objective to prove it, but only the intersubjective agreement. If the student uses the law of addition as everybody in the society does, the student is right. The language, which is the house of being, does not permit a private version of it. Man does not exist on earth, but men in the plural. Men are equal with personal creative talents. Both are important in the community of co-existence. Nobody has personal authority, whatever be his position.

The post synodal document does not speak of the bishops as successors of Apostles. Surprisingly, Mary Madeleine is called Apostle of Apostles. “He (Christ) commissions her to proclaim his Resurrection to the community of disciples. For this reason, the Church recognises her as Apostle of the Apostles. Their dependence on one another embodies the heart of synodality” (13). The document is very clear about the sensus fidei: “The sensus fidei aims at reaching a consensus of the faithful (consensus fidelium), which constitutes “a sure criterion for determining whether a particular doctrine or practice belongs to the apostolic faith” (22). As Pope Francis stated in his opening address of the Second Session, “the Holy Spirit is a sure guide and our first task is to learn how to discern his voice, since he speaks through everyone and in all things” (43). This is true of the Church as the Vatican document explicitly states.

The Synod on synodality speaks of a “sound ‘decentralisation’” (129), but the Syro-Malabar Synod has not followed and is alien to it. “The Gospel blessing of those who are “pure in heart” (Matt 5:8) and the command to be “innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16) resonated in this regard as well the words of the Apostle Paul: “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practise cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God” (2 Cor 4:2)” (96). The Fathers of the Church said the document “reflect on the communal nature of the mission of the People of God with a triple “nothing without”: “nothing without the bishop” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians 2,2) “nothing without the council of presbyters, nothing without the consent of the people” (St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 14,4). When this logic of “nothing without” is disregarded, the identity of the Church is obscured, and its mission is hindered” (88). The last October’s Synodal document states unambiguously “History leaves us with a legacy of conflicts motivated also by religious affiliation, undermining the credibility of religions themselves. Much suffering has been caused by the scandal of division between Christian communions and the hostility between sisters and brothers who have received the same Baptism” (56). The tragic history of Inquisition and witch-hunt continues. Clericalism reigns. We strain out a gnat but swallow a camel (Matt 23:24). “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev 2:29).