At this time of year, writers tend to be introspective, looking back and trying to find trends to help people make sense of what happened.
In doing this, we try today to follow the words of the Second Vatican Council in attempting to interpret the signs of the times in light of the Gospel.
What were those signs? What are the times?
Both were, I think, unmistakable: The signs pointed to 2024 being a year in which central authority in the Church was greatly weakened—and most of the weakening was self-inflicted.
Rome flinches
2023 ended with the publication of Fiducia supplicans. That DDF declaration attempted to reform how the Church understood blessings so that homosexual couples could be blessed as couples, under the rather unobjectionable teaching that even things contrary to God’s will have some positive elements to them.
With the full backing of Pope Francis, the DDF dropped this briefcase into the laps of the world’s episcopate, forbade any bishop from offering further guidance, and then pushed the detonator. This was a direct papal order that the bishops were to stand down and that the pope’s word was law.
According to most popular presentations of Catholic apologetics, that should have been it. Everyone should have just accepted it and gone home.
Instead, the opposite happened. A large portion of the Church in Africa universally rejected the document. As the days passed in the beginning of 2024, it became quickly obvious that the number of bishops willing to oppose the decree greatly outnumbered those willing to defend it (the majority of bishops simply tried keeping their heads down in the increasingly hostile firefight).
Defenders of the decree and the DDF made references to the Pope’s supreme authority to propose this path for the Church, and everyone was bound to follow. The growing number of bishops and bishops conferences instead replied in the famous dictum of Andrew Jackson: he has made his decision; now let us see him enforce it. The Pope indeed has supreme and ordinary jurisdiction in the Church. If a bishop acts contrary to the pope’s will, the pope can remove him.
This authority, however, is not self-authenticating. The pope would have to remove everyone who was obstructing his will, or enough to get the message across.
Faced with the growing opposition, and the realization he could not sack entire episcopal conferences to get his will, Francis began his retreat, which quickly turned into something resembling a rout. Faced with an ultimatum from the African Church that they were not going to implement the declaration, he agreed to a concession that effectively allowed the Africans to opt out of his decree. Upon seeing this, other countries’ conferences simply scrapped all plans to implement the decree.
In subsequent public statements, Pope Francis even backed away from the idea that the document permitted the blessing of homosexual couples, which directly contradicts the part of the document stating this new theology of blessing permits the blessing of same-sex couples.
The Church began 2024 by learning, perhaps for the first time in centuries, that “supreme and ordinary jurisdiction” is not only limited, but often has costs that will not be borne when challenged.
The vibes Magisterium
The year ended with the Synod on Synodality, something which had long been presented as the culmination of Francis’s legacy, and his definitive contribution to the Church.
The pope convened the synod as a way (in theory) to break beyond the usual ideological cliques that dominate discussions about how the Church is to present herself. Every parish in the world was to conduct listening sessions about what really mattered to the community, and then this model would be replicated up the ecclesiastical chain, culminating in a global synod on those results, and how to promote this style in the future. In setting out the terms of its success, Pope Francis envisioned a process that received more input than from the usual 3-4% of the worlds Catholics. Anything below 5% was, by his own definition, a serious failure of the synodal process.
In the end, approximately 2.5% of the worlds Catholics contributed, far below what Francis himself called a failure. Far from breaking the stranglehold of ideological cliques, the agenda of the synod was more ideological than ever. It became so unrepresentative of the Church that Pope Francis stripped from discussion nearly everything of importance, afraid of the fallout of explicitly ideological groups capturing Church institutions.
What followed was the “Seinfeld Synod”: a synod about nothing, attended by nobody, culminating in a document that was read by nobody.
Nonetheless, at the conclusion of the Synod, Pope Francis took the extraordinary step of including the Synod’s final report in the Ordinary Magisterium. How does that help with its reception and implementation?
Per the DDF, it means that it must be implemented. What parts must be implemented? How? When?
We’re asking questions the DDF and senior Church officials haven’t considered. They acted as if sprinkling magisterial pixie dust on a document fixed everything. They weren’t codifying a teaching; they were codifying a vibe. Yet since a vibe cannot possibly compel anything beyond a feeling, the Church on the ground appears to have already moved past the Synod, if they even cared about it to begin with.
Go visit your diocesan website and see what plans your diocese has for implementing the Synod. Read your bishop’s letters to determine his plans. You will not see much, even among close papal allies. In the United States, they will discuss the Synod at their yearly meetings in 2025, meaning that it will then get passed down to subcommittees to discuss. Those subcommittees may have some suggestions/recommendations at the end of 2025. Meaning you aren’t likely to hear anything about it until 2026, if ever.
Based on these two data points, it’s hard to argue with the proposition that 2024 was a waste of time on key measures for the Church globally. It can also be argued that 2024 represented a nadir for the authority of the modern papacy.
But, I would like to argue that an opportunity presents itself. We have seen definitively that thinking of authority in such reductionist terms (the only authority that matters is supreme/ordinary jurisdiction and the Magisterium) goes nowhere. What if this fact, far from bemoaned, was recognized? What if the onus for presenting a vision of the Church rested less with the Pope and his advisers, and more on the local level? What if the Pope was forced to abandon such pipe dream objectives as shaping the global vision of the Church, and instead just focused on being a visible sign of communion for Christians worldwide, and a pastor whose sole vision was on Christ and Him Crucified?
I don’t expect those in authority to relinquish that power, even if it only exists in theory today. But what if we did? What if we readers and writers began envisioning a Church that relied less on these gimmicks of authority? Hopefully, that can be the story of 2025.
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In short, Francis should prioritized listening to ALL the bishops, eschewed marginalizing those he disagreed with and cease acting like the neigborhood gang-leading bully.
DsN you mean he should stop behaving like a Freemasonic infiltrate with a hatred for Catholic Dogma and Catholics, and instead behave like a real-deal Catholic Pope.
Fat chance.
There are Freemasons under my bed, too.
They’re ubiquitous.
Absolutely, very well said! And this is a most excellent article. Father Andrew.
We read: “What if the Pope was forced to abandon such pipe dream objectives as shaping the global vision of the Church, and instead just focused on being a visible sign of communion for Christians worldwide, and a pastor whose sole vision was on Christ and Him Crucified?”
Two points plus an observation:
FIRST, the riddle is how for the Church (1) to permanently BE a sacramental sign in the world; but also (2) to DO internal governance legitimately through the individual and personally accountable Successors of the Apostles; but also (3) without demoting both the bishoprics (laity added equivalently to the seating chart) and the central Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now a dicastery); and (4) without also displacing the individual bishops with bureaucratic national conferences or even “continental assemblies;” and, surely, (5) without severing personal and human morality from the Faith, i.e., procedurally replacing the ordinary magisterium with the zeitgeist du jour; and overall (6) how to foster both personal piety and application of the Catholic Social Teaching to “secular” issues which are more than secular and in a compact world much more than local?
SECOND, about this six-sided Rubik’s Cube, the former Pope Benedict XVI offered this clear picture, and this prescient warning, almost thirty years ago:
“The Church is EUCHARIST [and] the GATHERING [….] The Fathers summed up these two aspects—Eucharist AND Gathering—in the word COMMUNIO [italics], which is once more returning to favor today [?]. Nowadays the opinion surfaces occasionally even in ecclesiastical circles [!] that a man is more Christian the more he is involved in Church activities.
“We have a kind of ecclesiastical occupation therapy; a committee [a synod, a synod on synodality, plus 15 Study Groups massaging “hot button issues”!], or at any rate some sort of activity in the Church [invalid deaconesses?], is sought for everyone. People—according to this way of thinking—must constantly be busy about the Church, they must always be talking about the Church, or doing something to or in her. But a mirror that reflects only itself is no longer a mirror; a window that no longer lets us see the wide open spaces outside, but gets in the way of the view, has lost its reason for being” (Ratzinger, “Called to Communion”, Ignatius, 1996, pp. 76, 145).
OBSERVATION: Dei Verum and Lumen Gentium are not backwardist. And, Gaudium et Spes clarifies that the secular domain is the distinctive (and neglected) role of the laity—it’s high time to move beyond the kitchen…
We read: “What if the Pope was forced to abandon such pipe dream objectives as shaping the global vision of the Church, and instead just focused on being a visible sign of communion for Christians worldwide, and a pastor whose sole vision was on Christ and Him Crucified?”
Two points plus an observation:
FIRST, the riddle is how for the Church (1) to permanently BE a sacramental sign in the world; but also (2) to DO internal governance legitimately through the individual and personally accountable Successors of the Apostles; but also (3) without demoting both the bishoprics (laity added equivalently to the seating chart) and the central Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now a dicastery); and (4) without also displacing the individual bishops with bureaucratic national conferences or even “continental assemblies;” and, surely, (5) without severing personal and human morality from the Faith, i.e., procedurally replacing the ordinary magisterium with the zeitgeist du jour; and overall (6) how to foster both personal piety and application of the Catholic Social Teaching to “secular” issues which are more than secular and in a compact world much more than local?
SECOND, about this six-sided Rubik’s Cube, the former Pope Benedict XVI offered this clear picture, and this prescient warning, almost thirty years ago:
“The Church is EUCHARIST [and] the GATHERING [….] The Fathers summed up these two aspects—Eucharist AND Gathering—in the word COMMUNIO [italics], which is once more returning to favor today [?]. Nowadays the opinion surfaces occasionally even in ecclesiastical circles [!] that a man is more Christian the more he is involved in Church activities.
“We have a kind of ecclesiastical occupation therapy; a committee [a synod, a synod on synodality, plus 15 Study Groups massaging “hot button issues”!], or at any rate some sort of activity in the Church [invalid deaconesses?], is sought for everyone. People—according to this way of thinking—must constantly be busy about the Church, they must always be talking about the Church, or doing something to or in her. But a mirror that reflects only itself is no longer a mirror; a window that no longer lets us see the wide open spaces outside, but gets in the way of the view, has lost its reason for being” (Ratzinger, “Called to Communion”, Ignatius, 1996, pp. 76, 145).
OBSERVATION: Dei Verum and Lumen Gentium are not backwardist. And, Gaudium et Spes clarifies that the secular domain is the distinctive (and neglected) role of the laity—it’s high time to move beyond the kitchen…
Central authority was spent on Rupnik and Prinicipi in 2024; what more needs to be said?
Para. 7 –
“Everyone should have just accepted it and GONE home”.
Sorry but when I encounter a major grammar error, my skepticism barometer goes into gear.
Thank you for the correction. I can understand some skepticism about my editing. But why would it cause skepticism about the article’s argument or analysis?
If the Synod is now humorously referred to as the “Seinfeld Synod”, nothing about nothing, a disastrous failure then why is the Church still referred to as synodal, bishops continuing to attempt to implement it?
“In subsequent public statements, Pope Francis even backed away from the idea that the document permitted the blessing of homosexual couples, which directly contradicts the part of the document stating this new theology of blessing permits the blessing of same-sex couples” (Tierney). Agreed with Tierney’s endline suggesting that we might well simply witness to Christ, “and Him crucified” as our mission.
Nevertheless, explosive faith chilling documents like Fiducia Supplicans continue to churn out of the DDF, which is obviously no longer, as openly admitted by Pope Francis, a Dicastery for the defense of the faith. Rather a launching pad for theological novelty, to wit heresy. Is it all planned? Take a wild guess.
Are they attempting to implement it? The entire point is they aren’t implementing it. Go ahead and find your diocesan synodal implementation plan. If you live in the United States, your diocese may begin to discuss its implementation… in 2026.
There have been synods throughout history, and in the East there is a general understanding of governance as being done through the body of the synod. That’s different than what this is, because the documents themselves aren’t clear what we are meant to be in this synodal process, primarily because a lot of previous attempts to define it ended in failure or resistance.
Attempting to implement and implementing have different meanings. Attempting to do something has a wide range of definition. That includes inquiry, speculation. Actual attempts at implementation can also be on a parish level with the approval of the bishop. That I can assure you is taking place.
Furthermore, the final synod document is magisterial. “It must be accepted” (USCCB). The bishops are not going to be disobedient. “As the U.S. bishops’ designated point person on the synod, Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, told the bishops, many of the synod’s recommendations ‘involve habits of ecclesial life that are already a part of our practice’ in the United States” (Angelus News).
“Although local Churches have been encouraged to begin implementing synodality, Bishop Flores noted in his Nov. 12 presentation to the assembly that some decisions at the universal level, including those involving the synodal reform of canon law, will be made by Pope Francis himself” (NCReg).
A stated intent of the Synod is for the Church to further its missionary posture. That can be a good thing if bishops implement it properly.
Doesn’t the Pope get it right on occasion? Not much acknowledgement of his coming out strong on his defense of pro life at New Years! Why? He threw mud in the faces of all those WOKE feminists and who credited him? Let’s be fair and give him due credit when due.
I didn’t mention it because I don’t think it’s part of some wider trend, nor does it (yet) to be saying something larger.
Not that difficult
In my opinion, our present pope has done a great deal to harm the Church. The idea of a “synodal church” is not a Catholic idea, but a Protestant one. I am glad to hear that most bishops are not doing very much to promote the findings of this synod. I believe this pope to be an apostate, heretical anti-pope who is trying to profess his own religion, and not that of the Catholic Church.
Carl above. It never occurred to me to attribute the error to you as editor. I don’t think an editor at this level should have to deal with utterances like “have went”.
Lo, back in 2021, yours truly opened a CWR Dispatch with this comment: “In this month of October, as we begin to ‘walk together’ in synodality, I recall a very favorable experience as a member of an archdiocesan pastoral council during 2001-2004 [!].” https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/10/02/opinion-making-sense-of-synodal-steps-during-precarious-times/ My point here is that in the United States and surely elsewhere, such councils (synods?) are not new.
But, speaking now of mongrelized synodality, and according to the Prophet Aesop, “the mountains were in labor, and out walked a mouse.” A mouse that legitimately might be nothing more than a too-hamfisted effort to simply encourage such councils where they do not yet exist.
Full stop, end of story? No need, then, to laicize the clergy or to clericalize the laity, a crucial point among others made from the back bleachers three years ago. And, a distinction articulated throughout the Vatican II Documents of 1962-65, e.g., “Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree [!], the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated” (Lumen Gentium, n. 10).
“Interrelated” but still clearly distinct?
In more capable hands, the synodal agenda might not have suffered a self-inflicted and possibly fatal injury by posturing diocesan bishops “primarily as facilitators” (the vademecum). Rather than still as Successors of the Apostles “sent” (apostello) by Jesus Christ, versus only local flip charts “assembled, collated, and synthesized.”
Bishop Flores underscores a vital issue in the interests of orthodoxy, that matters which pertain to Canon law will be decided by the Pope. That places the onus of any conflict with the canons as his responsibility. As such it prevents liberal bishops from making those decisions. That is, if it’s observed. Otherwise, we’ll have an increasingly fragmented Church.