In 2001, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was a rapporteur for the summit of bishops at the Vatican — and he did not like what he saw. The Catholic Church had adopted a top-to-bottom approach that stripped local churches of any decision-making power, and the synod of bishops was reduced to nothing more than a stamp of approval for pre-packaged conclusions made in Rome.
When Bergoglio emerged as Pope Francis in the 2013 con-clave, the synodal process was high on his list for reform.
“There was a cardinal who told us what should be discussed and what should not,” Francis said about his experience at the 2001General Synod in an interview with the Argentine newspaper La Nation in 2014. “That will not happen now,” he added.
On October 9 and 10, Pope Francis will inaugurate a three-year preparation process for the 2023 Synod, which will focus on reforming the synodal process. The preparation process and the 2023 Synod, with the theme “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation and mission,” have the potential to revolutionize the way decisions are made in the Catholic Church and promote a more decentralized structure of authority.