A leading Asian theologian says Pope Francis’ decision to include non-ordained women and men as voting members of October’s synod assembly is a “giant step” that will irreversibly change the Church’s decision-making processes.
Last month, the synod secretariat announced the Pope had authorised a reform to allow at least 70 non-bishops to be members of the 4-29 October synod assembly in the Vatican. This move will see women given a vote in a synod for the first time.
Fr Vimal Tirimanna is one of the theological advisers to the synod and a professor of moral theology who teaches in Sri Lanka and Rome.
“Things will never be reversed again. It’s a giant step, not a small step,” he told a webinar organised by The Tablet on the synod process on 17 May 2023.
“Even if nothing happens in the rest of the synodal process, this particular fact that 70 non-bishops are going to be there, is a big change. I don’t think it can be changed. At last, what Vatican II wanted has been realised – the process has begun.”
Fr Tirimanna, a Redemptorist priest who was involved in helping to draft the ”Enlarge the Space of Your Tent” synod document, explained that Francis’ reforms are a recovery of what took place in synods during the first millennium of Christianity.
He pointed out that when Paul VI established the synod of bishops in 1965, he never ruled out that synods would evolve, with the possibility of them becoming “synods of the People of God”.
The Pope’s changes, he said, are an attempt to “walk the talk” of Vatican II.
But Fr Tirimanna said there is still a lot of resistance to the synod among bishops, and from those who erroneously think the Pope is trying to take the Catholic Church in a “Protestant” direction.
“I am a little taken aback when I hear some voices, even here in Rome, which say, ‘Well this Pope has come from nowhere, and he’s trying to make the Catholic Church a Protestant Church’,” he said.