I know the conservatives say it "can't happen," but for the Vatican it seems where there's a will there's a way.... There also seems also to be another strategy afoot.... it is very very clever (sadly) https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/p...ide-leadership-of-the-church-from-ordination/ A prominent female member of the Vatican Curia, Sister Nathalie Becquart, has declared that Pope Francis intends to “disconnect participation in the leadership of the church from ordination” in the Synod on Synodality. Sr. Becquart – appointed in February 2021 as the Vatican’s first female member of the Roman Curia with synodal voting rights, and under-secretary of the Synod of Bishops, the body which is organizing the current Synod on Synodality – made the revelation in an interview conducted by The New York Times as part of the publication’s “Women and Leadership special report.”
Surely we can't critique Francis for moving from a clerical model to a synodal model? The Anglican Church is synodal. Naturally we all hold it's the superior form of church governance.
If they were implementing our church model it would be one thing, but they seem to define it in their own way, whatever words like “synodal” mean to them So for example we don’t really have discussions on bifurcating parish government from priestly ordination .. nor does that seem to belong under the rubric of “synodality,” but it does to them!
There is absolutely no way at all that the Roman Catholic Church is going to adopt a synodal system of government like the Anglican model. Pope Francis is never going to relinquish one tad of his power. I think he's holding this synod pathway, whatever, they're calling it, to fool people into thinking things will change. Francis frequently criticises clericalism but he never yields any power. In his motu proprio apotolic letter Traditionis Custodes (TC) he claimed to be returning power to the bishops that they lost as a result of Benedict XVI's motu proprio apotolic letter Summorum Pontificis. However, if you actually read TC you can see how much power has been transferred to Rome.
The Eastern Catholic churches are mostly synodal. They've been telling the Romans for years, "Watch how we go about business. You might learn something useful."
that's interesting.. In what concrete ways are those churches synodal (in our sense of the term, not Pope Francis...)? Do they hold regular synods / convocations, which adjudicate specific issues for the whole particular church?
From a recent article by Fr. Alexander Laschuk. https://slmedia.org/blog/we-saw-the...-from-the-eastern-christian-churches-one-body
to someone as ignorant as me of Eastern Catholic proceedings, can somebody mention if they have had any "legislative, executive, and judicial" events since the passing of Vatican I council in 1870?.. that to me was the watershed moment which forever submerged all parts of the Roman church to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, but I could be wrong
The big one that I'm aware of was in 1990 when the Bishops Synods of the 23 Eastern particular churches came together to codify their own particular laws and form Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium - (the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches). Here is an article that you may find helpful which breaks down the new Canon, and explains the governance of the Eastern Catholic Churches. https://cnewa.org/a-synergy-of-the-...in-the-eastern-catholic-patriarchal-churches/