Catholic Church England and Wales / Flickr
CV NEWS FEED // The late Pope Francis’ pontificate was marked by profound change and intense debate. Few initiatives encapsulate the spirit and controversy of his papacy more than the Synod on Synodality — a process he once called the “path which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.”
Now extended to a final session slated to take place at the Vatican in 2027, the Synod was first announced in 2020 as a four-year process that would conclude in 2024. That process now outlives its architect, however, and the questions it raised — and left unanswered — will be central to any honest reckoning with Pope Francis’ legacy.
Months after a delayed first session took place in 2023, the Vatican was still presenting the Synod as a journey of “encounter, listening and discernment with the whole People of God.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had similarly expressed hope that it would serve as a means of deepening communion and mission by engaging in broad consultation and including voices often left on the margins of Church discourse.
These ideas were consistent with Pope Francis’ wider pastoral vision of “accompaniment,” applying the concepts of mercy, dialogue, and “encounter” to complex moral situations rather than applying the clear categorizations and judgments favored by traditional moral theology.
The Synod also engaged in novel structural changes when it came to its meetings. As CatholicVote reported in 2023, Synod gatherings from the start employed a new form of “spiritual conversation” rather than allowing for traditional debates. The new approach emphasized concepts such as listening in silence, personal reflection, and communal discernment. In addition, lay men and women were given full voting rights during the Synod’s pivotal meetings — a historical first.
Some praised these innovations as a step toward co-responsibility and increased responsiveness on the part of the Church hierarchy. Critics, on the other hand, expressed concern that the Synod was on track to render doctrinal decision-making obscure and unaccountable while blurring distinctions between ordained and lay roles in the Church.
The cloud of uncertainty over the first Synod session
After months of mounting concern over the perceived lack of clarity in the synodal process, Cardinal George Pell called the Synod a “toxic nightmare” in a piece published in January 2023 by The Spectator just days after his death. He focused his concerns on an initial booklet published ahead of the Synod’s first gathering, which would take place in October of that year.
“The Catholic Synod of Bishops is now busy constructing what they think of as ‘God’s dream’ of synodality,” Pell wrote. “Unfortunately this divine dream has developed into a toxic nightmare despite the bishops’ professed good intentions.”
“They have produced a 45-page booklet which presents its account of the discussions of the first stage of ‘listening and discernment’, held in many parts of the world, and it is one of the most incoherent documents ever sent out from Rome,” Pell argued. “By an enormous margin, regularly worshipping Catholics everywhere do not endorse the present synod findings. Neither is there much enthusiasm at senior Church levels. Continued meetings of this sort deepen divisions and a knowing few can exploit the muddle and good will.”
Pell also expressed concern about what he called the “deepening confusion, the attack on traditional morals and the insertion into the dialogue of neo-Marxist jargon about exclusion, alienation, identity, marginalisation, the voiceless, LGBTQ as well as the displacement of Christian notions of forgiveness, sin, sacrifice, healing, redemption” during the Synod.
“Why the silence on the afterlife of reward or punishment, on the four last things; death and judgement, heaven and hell?” he asked, before concluding: “So far the synodal way has neglected, indeed downgraded the Transcendent, covered up the centrality of Christ with appeals to the Holy Spirit and encouraged resentment, especially among participants.”
Cardinal Pell was not alone.
The “dubia cardinals”
By mid-July of that year, five other prominent cardinals had written a series of “dubia” to Pope Francis asking for clarity with regard to a number of ambiguous statements that had come from the Vatican in the early stages of the Synod process. Dubia are formal questions, literally “doubts,” which cardinals may pose to the Pope when a matter of doctrine is in grave need of clarification from the Church’s highest seat of authority.
The cardinals who sent the dubia were Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Leo Burke, Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Robert Sarah, and Joseph Zen Ze-kiun.
Pope Francis responded privately, but the cardinals believed the response itself was unclear enough to warrant yet another set of dubia — a reformulation of the first — which they sent in August.
When they received no answer from Pope Francis, the cardinals finally published their revised dubia in October, just days ahead of the next Synod meeting.
The Vatican responded immediately by publishing Pope Francis’ original response to the cardinals’ July dubia — and by lambasting the cardinals.
“The Pope has already answered the ‘dubia’ of these cardinals,” Prefect of the Dicastery of the Faith Victor Manuel Fernandez told the Spanish daily ABC. “They have not published the answer of the Holy Father, who despite his many occupations took the trouble to answer them. Instead of publishing those answers, they are now making public new questions, as if the Pope were their slave for errands.”
Pope Francis’ answers to the dubia, however, were widely viewed as evasive and unclear.
Cardinal Zen, one of the five who submitted them, made a public statement that the Synod’s managers were engaging in “manipulation” that warranted “deep worry” about the future of the Church.
Cardinal Burke, another of the five, also issued a statement, clarifying that he and other critics of the Synod process were not attacking Pope Francis but trying to safeguard the Church amid growing uncertainty about how the Synod would affect teachings on marriage, sexuality, and ecclesial authority.
Initial concerns left unresolved
Both during and after the 2023 session, observers were generally left with mixed impressions as a lack of clarity continued to prevail in public perception of the Synod. Many lay Catholic theologians and commentators, in fact, expressed concerns similar to those raised by the five dubia cardinals.
The editors of The Catholic Herald warned in October 2023 that the Synod’s ambiguity and procedural shifts risked permanently undermining the Church’s hierarchy and drowning out voices of true authority.
Months later, theologian Larry Chapp wrote in an essay published by the Catholic World Report that critics of the Synod were not reactionary but faithful defenders of clarity in Church teaching.
John Allen of Crux, a noted proponent of Pope Francis’ often controversial pastoral methods, argued that the Pope was approaching the controversies surrounding the Synod in a manner first modeled by Pope Saint Paul VI during the years that followed the Second Vatican Council. Allen conceded, in other words, that Pope Francis was deliberately avoiding definitive resolutions on controversial topics, but also argued that the pontiff was wise to do so.
A conference at the University of Notre Dame that analyzed the session underscored how little clarity emerged from the dialogue-heavy process.
Many delegates left the session wondering what exactly they had participated in and what the Synod was meant to accomplish.
As the next session approached in October 2024, Cardinal Zen likely spoke for many when he reiterated his criticisms and warnings from the previous year. He accused the Synod of entertaining proposals that certainly cannot be approved according to Church teaching and warned that the Synod’s methods could “overthrow the Church hierarchy and implement a democratic system.”
Finally, he called on all participants to work toward bringing the Synod to a swift and “successful ending.”
A final session in the works
Planning for the final session of the Synod on Synodality was already underway at the time of Pope Francis’ passing.
As The Pillar explained in October 2024, the final outcome of the Synod would depend on a synthesis document, which would only carry magisterial authority if the Pope explicitly approved it.
That approval never came during the Francis pontificate.
An October 2024 analysis at the Catholic World Report outlined that the final report was expected to include broad principles for synodal governance but lacked clear doctrinal development.
Some observers believe the Synod’s outputs are becoming merely consultative rather than authoritative.
What now?
Months before his death, Pope Francis approved a further extension of the Synodal process.
A “Final Document” was approved by participants in the 2024 session and ordered to be released by Pope Francis himself. The document emphasized “‘relationships’, a way of being Church; and ‘bonds’, marked by the ‘exchange of gifts’ between the Churches lived dynamically and, therefore, converting processes,” according to a report from Vatican News.
The unclarity of the document left both critics and supporters of the Synod unmoved. Nonetheless, as one commentary from the National Catholic Register suggested, the Synod was likely never a mere method or standalone event of the Francis pontificate’s, but rather its defining vision.
Now, with the architect of the Synod gone, all eyes turn to the next Pope. Will he carry the process forward and conclude it with the scheduled “Ecclesial session” at the Vatican in October 2027? Or, listening to widespread expressions of confusion over the Synod, will he take Cardinal Zen’s recommendation by quickly “ending” the Synod?
There is no question that the Synod on Synodality was the centerpiece of Pope Francis’ efforts at reform. To some, it embodied the Church’s missionary call to listen, walk together, and remain open to the Holy Spirit. To others, it opened the door to confusion and doctrinal instability.
What remains is a deeply divided but attentive Church that is watching to see how Pope Francis’ successors will interpret a Synod that has stirred hearts, opened debates, and left no one indifferent.