VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – A high-ranking Vatican cardinal has described the current multi-year Synod on Synodality as a “discernment process” for the Church to “find truth,” hinting at possible changing of doctrine by Pope Francis after the Synod.
The Vatican’s Synod on Synodality is asking “what is the type of Church that the Holy Spirit is enlightening us to have for today?” said Cardinal Mario Grech, the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops.
Speaking to Catholic News Agency (CNA) in an interview released March 2, 65-year-old Cardinal Grech defended the Synod that his General Secretariat is organizing alongside the pro-LGBT Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich, who serves as the Relator General of the Synod.
“This synodal process is not sociological analysis of the Church, but it is a discernment process,” Grech said. “And when we say discernment, that means that we are trying to listen to the Holy Spirit.”
“Because after all, this is not an exchange of opinions — I say mine and you say yours — but together as a community, we try to do this personal discernment and this ecclesial discernment that is listening to the Holy Spirit together,” Grech said.
Running from 2021 to 2023, the Synod is currently at the diocesan stage, at which bishops must listen to both Catholics and non-Catholics in order to learn “how God is calling us to be as the Church in the third millennium,” according to the vademecum or handbook for the Synod. The local responses will then be submitted in preparation for drafting a working document or instrumentum laboris.
Listed on the Synod Resource website are submissions from a number of heretical and dissident groups, including the pro-LGBT New Ways Ministry, Women’s Ordination Conference, and the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests.
Its a scandal that the Synodal Way website is linking to:
A group that promotes sodomy
A group that supports the sacriligious simulation of priestly ministry among women
— Nick Donnelly (@ProtecttheFaith) January 21, 2022
Pointing to the Synod’s question about the Church’s identity, Grech appeared also to reference these Synod Resources, saying that “by presenting this, these themes, to the people of God, we hope that we can help them to engage in this discernment process in a prayerful attitude.”
Despite the Synod being already underway since October 9, Grech noted that a key challenge still remaining was understanding “what synodality really implies.”
“Though it is a constitutional element of the Church, unfortunately we still have difficulty to figure out now what synodality means,” he said, “how we can really walk together, how we can really create space for all the baptized so that we can be one Church. I think, yes, this is one of the difficulties that we are encountering.”
This attempt to “create space” is seen in the preparatory documents that propose a fundamental shift away from traditional teaching by recommending that the Synod must listen to “people who have left the practice of the faith, people of other faith traditions, people of no religious belief, etc.”
“No one – no matter their religious affiliation – should be excluded from sharing their perspective and experiences, insofar as they want to help the Church on her synodal journey of seeking what is good and true,” reads the vademecum. (Emphasis original)
Putting this concept into practice, Grech appeared to praise Germany’s Synodal Way, where recently an overwhelming majority of participants voted early February to approve documents calling for blessing of same-sex couples and the ordination of women.
“Church councils are synods, and the Church councils brought about an evolution in doctrine, but if we say for example, diocesan synod, or a national synod, those are different experiences of a synodal Church,” Grech said. Germany’s Synodal Way he described as simply being a “synodal experience on a national level.”
However, the Synodal Way has been previously condemned by Cardinal Marc Ouellet of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, who said the German bishops’ plans were “not ecclesiologically valid.”
The appointment of Cardinal Hollerich as Relator General of the Synod on Synodality – who supports the Synodal Way and its proposals – has led some to raise concerns that Pope Francis might not only support Germany’s Synodal Way but might be attempting to implement Church-wide changes via the Synod on Synodality.
Indeed, Grech alluded to such a possibility by referencing the Synod’s link to changing doctrine. He noted first that his Synod of Bishops “has no power to change any doctrine. The synod obviously can go more in depth, about the truth, our tenets of faith.”
But Grech, appointed Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops in 2020, hinted at possible changes coming from the Pope based on the Synod, employing the phrase of the Church being able “to find truth” via the Synodal process.
But then as Episcopalis communio says, it’s up to the Holy Father to make the final decision. He is Peter for the Church. And we have this trust in him. Through the synod, bishops, Peter, listening to all the people of God, obviously, we’ll get more help, more assistance to help us to find truth.
A number of traditional Catholic commentators have already highlighted potential dangers to the Catholic stemming from the Synod. Matt Gaspers, managing editor of Catholic Family News, warned that the Synod would be “a mishmash of confusion and heresy,” and Donnelly told LifeSiteNews of “fundamental error” in the Synod documents, and the subsequent “danger of proclaiming a false and worldly message instead of the Gospel of Christ.”