(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has launched a three-year implementation phase of the Synod on Synodality to be carried out by “local churches” and concluded with an ecclesial assembly in 2028.
The move signals the first functional development of the “new church” and “new religion” previously heralded by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, according to Catholic commentator Anthony Stine.
Cardinal Mario Grech, the Secretary General of the Synod’s General Secretariat, announced the new “accompaniment process” and post-synodal ecclesial assembly in a letter to “all Bishops and Eparchs,” as well as the Patriarchs of Eastern Catholic Churches,” Vatican News reported.
According to Grech, “local Churches and groups of Churches” will be expected to implement the Final Document of the 16th General Assembly, the Synod on Synodality’s final text, through “discernment and decision-making.” He pushed this as an imperative, Vatican News suggested, because Francis has declared the final document to be “part of the ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter.”
That document reinforces the comments of Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández in saying that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open,” despite Catholic teaching infallibly stating that the matter is closed.
The Synod’s Secretary General reportedly explained that this implementation phase should not be interpreted as “a simple application of directives from above,” but rather as a “reception process” of the final document that is adapted “to local cultures and community needs.” His description echoes the most pronounced theme of the Synod: that of a supposed “bottom-up” Church decision-making process, in contrast to its traditional “top-down” authority structure, instituted by Christ Himself.
Grech said in vague terms that the goal of the implementation phase is “to make exchanges and dialogue between Churches and within the Church concrete.”
Vatican News noted that the implementation process will involve, as previously during the Synod, “synodal teams composed of priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, and laypeople, accompanied by their bishop.” The Holy See’s media outlet suggested that they would reactivate teams previously used during the Synod.
A document detailing the plans for the “accompaniment process” is to be published in May, followed by the celebration of a “Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies” from October 24-26.
“This is the attempt to decentralize the Church and give the laity authority in the Church. This is the democratization of the Church,” remarked Stine, who hosts the Return to Tradition podcast.
“This will functionally be a new church, a new religion,” he remarked, going on to point out that Cardinal Hollerich, who is considered papabile, has used the words “new synodal church” to describe the intended outcome of the Synod.
CNN noted that Francis’ greenlight for the Synodal plan sends “a strong signal” he intends to continue acting as pope despite his recent hospitalization amid health struggles.
In light of the suggestion that women’s access to diaconal ministry remains an open question, as well as other topics of concern such as local episcopal authority over doctrine, a number of prelates have renewed their criticism about the Synod.
Cardinal Raymond Burke stated the proposals of the Synod’s final document were “extremely troublesome and dangerous.” Promotion of the question of female deacons “is going to simply generate more confusion and division to the harm of the Church’s mission,” Burke added.
Bishops emeriti Marian Eleganti and Joseph Strickland also firmly criticized the Synod’s conclusions, with Eleganti warning that having local bishops decide on “teaching and discipline” would “be the end of the catholicity of the Church.”
The voices of these prelates are joined to that of Cardinal Joseph Zen, who has himself been a consistent critic of the Synod on Synodality, issuing a number of letters and commentaries to his brother bishops in attempts to warn them of the dangers he perceives.
Shortly after the Synod concluded in October, Zen attested that Pope Francis uses synods “to change the Church’s doctrines or disciplines each time rather than discuss how to safeguard these doctrines and disciplines.”
