(LifeSiteNews) — Swiss Bishop Marian Eleganti warned that the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality’s hoped-for decentralization of Catholic “teaching and discipline” would “be the end of the catholicity of the Church.”
In a recent piece published on Eleganti’s website, he highlighted the fact that, as Pope Francis and the synod’s leading clerics have signaled many times, one of the desired outcomes of the synod is a “cultural regionalization of teaching and discipline” of the Church in contradiction to its perennial practice.
“A prerequisite for this is an upgrading of the doctrinal authority of the bishops’ conferences (God forbid!),” Eleganti wrote. “That would then be the end of the catholicity of the Church if things were different in Poland than in Germany or Africa.”
The word “catholic” means universal – thus, the “regionalization of teaching and discipline” would indeed undermine the catholicity, or universality, of the Church.
Such fragmentation of the hierarchy’s teaching authority is already being made manifest in Germany, for example, where the bishops conference has endorsed heresy. In 2022, an overwhelming majority of the German Synodal Path clergy voted in favor of blessing same-sex couples, overhauling Church teaching on homosexuality, optional celibacy for priests, lay involvement in the election of new bishops, and the ordination of women to the priesthood. Many orthodox prelates have warned that the Synodal Path puts the German clergy at risk of schism.
While the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality officially concluded in October, it has yet to come to fruition, Eleganti noted, not only because the results of the synod have yet to be published but because the synod still has to be implemented “on the ground.” It is in this coming materialization of the Synod that the “reformers” behind it put their hope for Church changes, Eleganti said.
The anticipated changes include “the female diaconate,” “perhaps married priests,” and a fundamental change in the structure of church authority: the “synodal” decentralization of power, according to Eleganti.
Notably, while the synod is touted as introducing a kind of democratic decision-making process in the Church, it is in fact the pope as well as the “moderators” of the synod who ultimately hold sway over the final outcomes of the synod and what it permits Church-wide, Eleganti observed.
“The Pope is sovereign anyway, can intervene anywhere and cannot be judged by anyone,” Eleganti wrote. “In the background, he and his followers have obviously been directing the synodal process.”
Eleganti went on to note that “In the end, it is those who write and present the texts, or ‘moderate’ the process, not to say ‘steer’ it,” who hold the power. He added, “The appeal to the Holy Spirit seems strained. They and above all the Pope decide what the final binding outcome will be. The extensive surveys carried out beforehand do not change this.”
The Swiss bishop has previously spoken even more strongly of Francis’ hypocrisy amid the synod, declaring in an August interview, “Although Pope Francis has written Synodality on his banner, he has a very authoritarian leadership style. He intervenes in the synodal process and steers it, for example, by withdrawing important issues from the plenary assembly and delegating them to commissions that work autonomously.”
Five cardinals – Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Leo Burke, Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Robert Sarah, and Joseph Zen – have submitted and published unanswered dubia challenging Francis and several aspects of the “Synod on Synodality” that go against Church teaching. In particular, the cardinals asked Francis whether the Church today can “teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals,” and whether the Church may “bless” homosexual unions and ordain women to the diaconate.
Cardinal Burke has also recently warned that the synod’s proposal for lay and decentralized governance is un-Catholic, explaining that “while there is a role for consultation according to the ancient synods, this is not an essential mark of the Church. This is extremely troublesome and dangerous and it needs to be corrected.”