In his 2013 Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis spoke of a “conversion of the Papacy” that would help him “exercise” the Petrine ministry. In the same document, the Holy Father criticized the “excessive centralization” of power in the Office of Peter, suggesting that Bishops’ Conferences should be empowered with “genuine doctrinal authority.”
The Pope further addressed the need for a decentralized Church in his 2016 Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. He wrote: “I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium…Each country or region, moreover, can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs.”
According to Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, President of the Polish Conference of Bishops, the Pope indicated to the Polish Bishops that a decentralized Church would be able to interpret Papal Encyclicals and to solve contentious issues, such as giving Communion to civilly divorced and remarried Catholics.
“The journey of synodality is the journey that God wants from his Church in the Third Millennium,” the Pope said as he, members of the Synod of Bishops on the Family, theologians and other guests marked the anniversary of Blessed Paul VI’s institution in 1965 of the synod as a forum for sharing the faith and concerns of the world’s Catholics, reflecting together and offering counsel to the Pope.
“The synodal Church,” Francis stated, “is a listening Church, aware that listening is more than hearing. It is a reciprocal listening in which each one has something to learn.”
Referring to the Greek roots of the word “synod,” Francis said, “walking together -- Laity, Pastors, the Bishop of Rome -- is an easy concept to express in words, but is not so easy to put into practice.”
“The need for everyone in the Church -- from the Pope on down -- to listen and to learn from others is based on the conviction, clearly explained by the Second Vatican Council, that through Baptism and Confirmation all members of the Church have been anointed by the Holy Spirit and that the entire Christian community is infallible when its members discern together and speak with one voice on matters of faith and morals,” Pope Francis said.
“The sensus fidei (sense of faith) makes it impossible to rigidly separate the ecclesia docens (teaching church) and the ecclesia discens (learning church) because even the flock has a ‘nose’ for discerning the new paths that the Lord is opening up to the Church,” the Pope said.
But ensuring the synodality of the whole Church will be impossible, the Holy Father insisted, if people misunderstand the church’s hierarchy and see it as a structure in which some people are placed above others.
“The church’s structure,” the Pope said, “is like an upside down pyramid” with the top on the bottom, which is why the Ordained are called ‘ministers’ -- they serve the others."
“In his diocese,” Francis said, “the Bishop is the Vicar of Jesus who, at the Last Supper, knelt to wash the feet of the apostles,” and the Pope is called to truly be “the servant of the servants of God. We must never forget: for the disciples of Jesus — yesterday, today and forever — the only authority is the authority of service; the only power is the power of the cross,” the Holy Father said.
Francis told the gathering that “the Pope does not stand alone above the Church,” but he is “within it as a baptized person among the baptized and in the Episcopal College as a Bishop among Bishops, called at the same time -- as the successor of the Apostle Peter -- to guide the Church of Rome, which presides in love over all the local churches.”
And so, the synodal process requires the Church to listen to the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, called to make pronouncements “not based on his personal convictions, but as the supreme witness of the faith of the entire Church,” the Holy Father insisted.
It is clear, however, that not all the Bishops agree with and accept the synodality which Pope Francis espouses.
More in Part II of this post tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment