These Last Days News - October 17, 2024
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Synod Proposal to ‘Decentralize’ Doctrinal Authority Met With Major Pushback...

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NCRegister.com reported on October 16, 2024:

By Jonathan Liedl

A proposal to decentralize doctrinal authority in the Catholic Church was met with significant pushback Wednesday during the Synod on Synodality, three separate participants told the Register.

The pushback took place as delegates considered a proposal in the synod’s instrumentum laboris, or working document, to recognize episcopal conferences “as ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority, assuming socio-cultural diversity within the framework of a multifaceted Church.”

According to synod sources, several delegates from multiple language groups and geographical backgrounds expressed concerns that the move would fracture Church unity and relativize Catholic teaching.

One synod member described the degree of pushback as “tremendous.”

“A majority is clearly opposed. Overwhelmingly,” the delegate said, speaking on condition of anonymity, given the synod’s strict confidentiality rules.

Another delegate told the Register that the concern expressed by the assembly regarding the proposal was the most forceful yet during this year’s synod session, which started Oct. 2 and concludes on Oct. 27.

Since the instrumentum laboris was released in July, theological observers and synod delegates have told the Register that they see the proposal to give episcopal conferences doctrinal authority as one the most critical topics on the entire agenda. 

Decentralizing doctrinal authority, or deciding certain doctrinal questions at local levels rather than universally, has been seen as a pivotal step for those aiming to make dramatic changes to Catholic teaching. 

For instance, the need for decentralized authority is regularly touted by the proponents of the German Synodal Way, which has pushed for changes to Church teaching on sexuality and male-only holy orders.

The criticism of the instrumentum laboris’ proposal first emerged Oct. 16 when the synod’s five language groups presented a summary of their small-group discussions. Sources indicated that concern about decentralizing doctrinal authority was most pronounced among the one French and two English-language groups, as compared to the Spanish and Italian groups.

Criticism continued to pour in during “free interventions,” or speeches, made by individual synod members before the entire assembly this morning.

Sources said that individual delegates spoke about the need to avoid falling into relativism while presenting the faith to different cultures; avoiding anything that would damage the unity of faith; the fact that the papacy and episcopacy are divinely constituted, while episcopal conferences are not; and that the Church’s oneness and catholicity are threatened if same-sex marriage is acceptable in one place and not in another.

German Catholic media also reported on the pushback, quoting a synod delegate who said in an intervention, “A fragmented faith also means a fragmented Church!”

As another delegate put it to the Register, “a majority of the interventions were not in the hoped [for] direction,” referring to a perceived desire among organizers for the proposal to be widely accepted.

Theologian Intervenes

The pushback was so significant that it seems to have prompted synod organizers to make the unprecedented move of having a theological expert at the synod, Father Gilles Routhier, give an impromptu presentation after the morning break before the whole assembly in an attempt to clarify the proposal and assuage concerns.

One delegate called this “highly unusual” and said that “it took me aback” because the bishops and other synod delegates had already expressed their views on the issue.

Delegates who spoke to the Register said that the French-Canadian theologian’s presentation seemed to satisfy some in the assembly, but that they still had their concerns.

One synod source said that Father Routhier’s argument that local councils had always had doctrinal authority in the Church’s tradition raised concerns about why the proposal to extend that authority to episcopal conferences was even needed. Another synod member expressed concern that Father Routhier seemed to imply that the doctrinal authority a bishops’ conference would have would be “based on the hierarchy of truths,” possibly implying that while some central dogmas would be maintained by the Church’s universal teaching authority in Rome, local conferences would be able to teach authoritatively in other areas.

This delegate said that they expect organizers to take pushback against the proposal into account when drafting the synod’s final document. If not, “then I would feel, honestly, that we’re being manipulated by these theologians.”

That final document would then be presented to Pope Francis, who could refer to it in issuing his own teaching document, or could even accept the text as is, giving it magisterial authority.

The day’s debates over decentralizing doctrinal authority were referenced at the synod’s daily press briefing, with spokespeople noting that calls to avoid fragmentation in the Church came up in the assembly. 

The topic was also referenced at an evening theological forum on the relationship between local Churches and the universal Church, with Cardinal Robert Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, speaking of the need to distinguish between what kind of decentralization could be allowed for necessary inculturation and what is essential for the unity of the Church.

Growing Concerns About Decentralization

The topic of unity of Church teaching also seemed to be on the minds of delegates outside the synod hall — and in the wider Church — in the days leading up to the Oct. 16 discussion.

Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau, Germany, a critic of the German Synodal Way, told the Register on Oct. 14 that some in his home country seek to “regionalize” doctrine, especially in regard to gender issues and sexual morality.

The Bavarian bishop said these approaches fail to consider the “sacramentality of the person,” which calls everyone to “communicate God’s love to the world,” including through the sign of their created bodies.

“If this is true, then it cannot be true that in Africa you deal in a different way with, for example, these questions on sexual morality. It cannot be true,” Bishop Oster said, noting that there could be differences in pastoral approach.

The next day, Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney told EWTN News that the Church “cannot teach a different Catholicism in different countries.”

“Could we, for instance, envision a Church where you have ordination of women in some countries but not in other countries, or you have same-sex marriages in some countries but not in others countries, or you have an Arian Christology in some countries and a Nicene Christology in others?” the Australian archbishop asked, rhetorically. “You might guess, ‘I think No.’”

And Dutch Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, in an interview published Wednesday in the German-language version of the theological journal Communio, warned that pursuing regional solutions to contentious issues could damage the Church profoundly.

“If unity in proclamation is lost,” the archbishop of Utrecht said, “the Church loses its credibility.”

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