The Working Document for Round Two of the Synod

Part I: Overview and Relationships Over Bureaucracy

Earlier this month, the Vatican’s General Secretariat for the Synod presented to the world the working document, or Instrumentum Laboris (IL), that will serve as a starting point for the discussions at the second session of the Synod of Bishops this upcoming October. Titled “How to be a Missionary Church,” the document provides a summary of the topics to be discussed and draws on the Synthesis Report produced at the end of the first session last October, feedback from over a hundred episcopal conferences provided since that first session’s closing, and a handful of other sources. Continuing my ongoing series of essays on the Synod on Synodality, I wanted to provide some initial thoughts on the IL in this and a subsequent essay.

My first takeaway is somewhat superficial: the IL is inspiring and a pleasure to read. Last year, I noted that, in my opinion anyway, the Instrumentum Laboris written for the first session suffered a bit from too much jargon and a lack of clarity, and it also had a strange format, consisting of a relatively short document covering the themes of synodality, communion, mission, and participation, followed by several topical “worksheets” with questions for discussion for the synod participants. Although a novel format, it admittedly worked well in organizing the daily meetings of the first session and providing guidance for the table discussions.

Ironically, then, the new IL eschews this format. Instead, after an introduction explaining (quite well!) synodality and the synodal process, it includes three sections on the themes of, roughly, the organization and mission of the Church, discernment and decision-making in the Church, and the structures of the Church both locally and worldwide. As Giacomo Costa, S.J., the Special Secretary of the Synod of Bishops, explained at the press conference announcing the publication of the IL, the four sections of the document will correspond with the four “modules” comprising the October gathering’s schedule, although the precise structure of the meeting’s proceedings and how the IL will be used will be announced at a later time. He did add, however, that the IL should not be considered a “draft” of the final document to be amnended by the participants, but rather as a basis of discussion.

Before reading the new IL, I went back and re-read last year’s Synthesis Report to refresh myself on its contents, which were intended to summarize the conversations from the first session of the Synod (I wrote a commentary on that document here). I’m glad I did, because it helped me clearly recognize that the IL relies heavily on the Synthesis Document at several points. The IL draws on several other sources, as well, though:

• A brief document titled “Towards October 2024,” issued by Synod Secretariat back in December, called on local Churches and episcopal conferences to read over the Synthesis Report and to reflect on the question, “How can we be a synodal Church in mission?” This period of reflection took place during Lent of this year and was definitely more low-key than the initial synodal process that began at the parish level back in 2021. For example, in the United States, most dioceses and eparchies held two or three listening sessions, the results of which were communicated to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which then drafted a National Synthesis document. The new IL draws on this and similar syntheses from around the world, as well as feedback from theologians and other experts consulted by the Synod Secretariat while drafting the IL.

• In March, the Secretariat established five working groups, consisting mostly of theologians and other experts, but also including a few bishops, to focus on ecclesiological themes that had emerged from the discussions in the first session and that would be central to the work of the second session. These themes were outlined in a brief document issued at that time. I provided a brief summary of those five themes here (near the end of the article). Material from these groups was likewise used to inform the IL, although it’s not clear to me if these groups will continue to meet in the meantime or if their work is complete.

• Finally, as I briefly mentioned here, in April a group of 193 parish priests from around the world gathered in the Vatican for a synodal gathering where they engaged in conversations similar to those conducted at the first session of the Synod. The meeting was in part organized in response to the dearth of parish priests selected to attend the main Synod sessions. Input from these conversations was likewise used in drafting the new IL.

Much of the reporting so far on the IL has focused on what’s not in the document—for example, as Christopher White writes for the National Catholic Reporter:

Many of the hot button issues that dominated Pope Francis' high-stakes summit on the future of the Catholic Church last October, such as women deacons and welcoming LGBTQ Catholics, will be off the table when prelates and lay delegates return to Rome this October for the meeting's concluding monthlong assembly.

The narrower focus of the second session should not be surprising, however; it was hinted at in the December document “Towards October 2024,” and in March, the Synod Secretariat announced the creation of ten working groups (distinct from the five mentioned earlier; the members of the ten groups were only announced this month, when the IL was presented) that would study key issues that had arisen during the synodal process and that were discussed by the Synodal Assembly, but that were being taken off the agenda of the Synod’s second session (although the working groups will provide a status report on their work to the Synod participants). I offered some more developed thoughts on this narrowing of focus, which came at the initiative of Pope Francis himself, here, but it seems to me that the pope’s intention is for the Synod to focus on laying the groundwork for the fundamental ecclesial structures and processes needed to enliven synodality, perhaps with the intention of better equipping the Church to consider more contentious issues later on.

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Turning then to the content of the IL, I don’t want to provide a topic-by-topic summary. In part, this is because, as I already mentioned, the document draws heavily on the Synthesis Report in particular, and several themes that have been discussed throughout the synodal process more generally, and so I don’t want to have too much repetition of things I’ve already discussed here in the newsletter. Second, the IL covers a lot of ground, and I fear my summary would be nearly as long as the document itself! I do, however, want to highlight three major themes that I think capture the tone of the document and that I’m sure will be major foci for the conversations later in October: 1. resistance to bureaucracy; 2. listening and discernment in Church decision-making; and 3. the question of accountability. I’ll discuss the first of these here, and the other two in a subsequent essay.

Sociologists since at least Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber have noted that the replacement of personal and communal relationships with bureaucratization is one of the defining characteristics of the modern world, and the Catholic Church has not been immune to this process. As the theologian Avery Dulles, S.J. famously argued in Models of the Church, this bureaucratization accentuated the Catholic Church’s already heavy focus on the institutional aspects of the Church’s identity. The Roman Curia, for example, is well known for its byzantine machinations, but even at the parish level, pastors are often buried under mountains of paperwork and administrative responsibilities, and tasks such as setting up a wedding or baptismal preparation can sometimes be daunting for parishioners.

Although hardly denying that the Church needs institutional structures and processes, the IL suggests that synodality can be seen as an antidote to over-bureaucratization. In fact, Part 1 of the document begins by stating:

Throughout the synodal process and from all regions of the globe, the request emerged for a Church less focused on bureaucracy and more capable of nurturing relationships with the Lord, between men and women, in the family, in the community, and between social groups.

This contrast between bureaucracy and relationships was also expressed in the earlier Synthesis Report: “This process has renewed our experience of and desire for the Church as God's home and family, a Church that is closer to the lives of Her people, less bureaucratic and more relational” (1b, cited in IL 5). Pope Francis himself has likewise expressed the view that excessive bureaucracy can become an obstacle to grace and the Holy Spirit.

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain (Photo: Manuel Torres Garcia, Unsplash, cropped)

In the decades after the Second Vatican Council, in reaction against the emphasis of what Dulles called the “institutional model” on the Church’s structures and rules, one might have sometimes heard, in pastoral settings like adult faith formation discussions or retreats, the view that the Church is less about those structures and rules, and more about people providing support for one another, building relationships with one another, and engaging with the community together. Greater emphasis was put, then, on what the IL calls “nurturing relationships” in reaction against what was perceive as the institutionalist excesses of the post-Tridentine Church.

Although not without value, this type of popular ecclesiology risks becoming a hazy nondenominationalism or even reducing the Church to a kind of social club. The IL, particularly in the introduction and Part 1, takes a third approach, insisting that the Church is a “web of relationships” (Introduction to Part 1), but explaining at length that these relationships are grounded in our shared vocation given at baptism and expressed through a variety of charisms. Similarly, these relationships exist in service to the Church’s mission, which is fostering life in the Spirit and journeying toward the Kingdom of God. In other words, although the IL does propose a more relational Church, the relationships it describes are given shape by the concrete narrative structure provided by the Gospel message and the Christian vocation. Distinct vocational identities such as priest or deacon, consecrated religious, and lay person, the structure of local Eucharistic communities headed by bishops, and moral global institutions like the papacy and regional communions of Churches are all necessary expressions of these relationships, and therefore the institutional and the interpersonal should not be regarded as polar opposites.

The IL, therefore, suggests that synodality is a way of describing the Church’s true identity that avoids the pitfalls of both bureaucratization and individualism. Still, the Church can always do more to embody this vision and is therefore always in need of reform. For example, one of the major focuses of the document is on how the Church could improve its decision-making processes to better reflect the participation of all the faithful, with all their distinct vocations, in the life of the Church, a theme I will discuss in Part II of this reflection, along with the IL’s treatment of accountability in the Church.

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Of Interest and Coming Soon…

• Earlier this month, I wrote about the DDF’s first two judgments regarding alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary using new norms published by the dicastery earlier this year (I provided an overview of the norms here): in the first case, that of an Italian woman who claimed Mary spoke to her and that an image of the Virgin shed tears of blood, the DDF definitively ruled that it was not of supernatural origin, while in the second, a mid-century case in which Mary asked to be venerated under the title of “Mystical Rose,” the Vatican ruled that there should be no obstacle to the spread of devotion to the apparition. In my commentary on the new norms, I explained that the DDF points to the example of the apparition of the Lady of All Nations in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in which the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the local bishop rendered conflicting judgments, as illustrating one rationale necessitating the new norms. Strangely, the document left the apparition unnamed, speaking of it only in general terms. But earlier this month, the DDF released to the public the 1974 document in which the Vatican had ruled that the apparition was not of supernatural origin. Although this recent move was simply tying loose threads on a case that had already been settled, the case is a bit more significant to the universal Church than the others because Mary had allegedly revealed to the visionary, Ida Peerdeman, her desire that the pope should declare as a dogma the Virgin’s role as “Co-redemptrix, mediatrix of all graces, and advocate,” an idea that had likewise been promoted by a handful of theologians and spiritual writers but that proved controversial, particularly the first title. Pope Francis has rejected language referring to Mary as “co-redeemer,” and the Vatican’s definitive rejection of the Lady of All Nations apparition likely further deflates that cause.

• In addition to Part II of my thoughts on the Instrumentum Laboris, here are a few more highlights upcoming in Window Light.

• July has been a busy month in the Catholic Church, and here in the United States, the big event has been the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, the culmination of the National Eucharistic Revival launched back in 2022, which concludes this weekend. Although the Revival was somewhat controversial at its conception because it was linked in the minds of many with the debate over withholding communion from pro-choice politicians, the National Eucharistic Congress appears to have been a major success and a positive event in life of the Church, although with a few hiccups like the perpetual adoration chapel weirdly advertised as having a corporate sponsor (the prayer app Hallow). Having not attended the Congress, I’m limited in what I can write about it, but it would also be a shame to ignore it, so I will try to put some thoughts down in the near future.

• A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) had issued a lengthy document on the papacy, collating several responses from other Christian denominations on the role of the pope and the place of the papacy in ecumenical efforts. I committed to writing something up on this document, but, to be honest, I’ve been deterred by its length and my own lack of expertise on that specific topic! But hopefully soon I can set aside the time to plod through the document and put it into context.

• On July 13, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Although the event’s significance lies primarily in the political and law enforcement realms, there is a theological angle. Because the bullet that grazed Trump’s ear came incredibly close to killing him, Trump himself and many of his supporters have come to claim that Trump’s survival was the result of divine intervention, and even a sign of his divinely-appointed destiny, although others have pointed out that the bullet that just missed Trump went on to hit a rally participant—a father and firefighter—in the head, killing him, a fact which is hard to square with the notion that something miraculous occurred. In my opinion, the whole discussion has been hampered by an impoverished view of divine action and providence. At first, I had only planned to offer some brief thoughts on the topic here in the “Of Interest” section, but I’m now leaning toward a lengthier, more developed essay. I know that questions involving death and the divine will can get touchy, though, so I want to think out my words carefully…

• I am still working on translating the interviews I’ve published as part of the Window Light newsletter into podcast episodes, so stay tuned!