VATICAN CITY — As the Vatican begins a three-year implementation phase of the Synod on Synodality, is the process — already criticized for flirting with Protestant ecclesiology — moving ever more toward a model of governance alien to the Catholic Church? 

On March 15, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, announced that the “Accompaniment Process of the Implementation Phase of the Synod on Synodality” will culminate in October 2028, not in a synod of bishops but in something novel in Catholic Church governance: an “ecclesial assembly” where the “People of God,” made up of roughly equal numbers of bishops, clergy, religious and laypeople, will propose perspectives “for the entire Church.”

This is a notable departure from the previous assemblies of the Synod on Synodality where the majority of the votes were cast by bishops. 

Cardinal Grech confirmed in an interview with Vatican Media that as the ecclesial assembly will be a gathering of the whole Church, it will be different in “nature and function” from a traditional Synod of Bishops, “which is and remains essentially an assembly of bishops.” 

The goal of the implementation “journey,” he said, is to “help churches walk in a synodal style” and to ensure that “a true ‘conversion,’ a change in mentality,” has “time to take root in the Church’s practice.” The process also aims to strengthen “bonds between churches at national, regional, and continental levels.” 

The Register contacted Cardinal Grech for comment on these concerns, but his spokesman said he was not giving interviews at this time.

The newly announced phase, which will begin this summer, was “definitively approved” by Pope Francis from his hospital bed on March 11. It will consist of three “evaluation assemblies” staggered over three years beginning at the local level in 2026, then moving to national and international bishops’ conferences in 2027, before continuing with a continental evaluation in the first half of 2028 and ending with the ecclesial assembly, with final approval left to the Pope.

 

Episcopal Authority Undermined

But EWTN commentator Father Gerald Murray, a canonist and priest of the Archdiocese of New York, has pinpointed what he sees as a major problem with the ecclesial assembly: that bishops taking part in the landmark event will not be the majority, and the ecclesial assembly will have the final word on what synodality means and what the rest of the Church must embrace in order to be synodal.

“The authority of the episcopal college, under and in union with the Pope, to teach, sanctify and govern the People of God, comes from Christ and cannot legitimately be made subject to any arrangement which parcels out that exclusive authority to an assembly made up of priests, deacons, religious and laypeople,” Father Murray told the Register. 

As such, he believes the ecclesial assembly cannot exercise the role of a synodal assembly, but only “an illegitimate pseudo-synod claiming powers for itself that it cannot possibly enjoy.” 

“The shepherds govern the flock; the flock does not govern the shepherds,” Father Murray stressed.

Father Murray’s concerns echo those of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who explained to the Register that in the Catholic Church “the bishops are there because they have authority and divine right; they have the magisterium. The laypeople have apostolic mission, but they don’t have the same authority as the bishops.” The Pope, the former prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith added, “cannot absorb all the authority of the bishops and give it to the laypeople. He doesn’t have the authority to change the sacramental order of the Church.” 

He recommended that those involved in the synod study the first three chapters of Lumen Gentium, which address the Church’s nature, mission and structure, as well as learn about the dogma of the papacy and the pope’s role in the first ecumenical councils. 

Both he and Father Murray said the ecclesial assembly model closely resembles the General Synod of the Church of England.

The Church of England is characterized as “episcopally led and synodically governed,” meaning it is led by bishops but its practices and laws are determined through diocesan synods, primarily its General Synod, commonly known as the Church of England’s “parliament.” Both diocesan synods and the General Synod consist of clergy, bishops and laity. 

The General Synod dates back to 1970, but the Church of England has had a synodal method of governance going back at least to 1919 and its forerunner, the Church Assembly, a body which had narrower powers and less legal standing in the governance of the Church of England compared to the General Synod.

As its permanent national assembly and legislative body, the General Synod and the ecclesial assembly of the Synod on Synodality have a number of similarities: They both enjoy broad participation in decision-making involving bishops, clergy and, most notably, laity; they have the power to consider and approve legislation through voting; and both are involved in evaluating and implementing changes in church practices and policies, although with regard to the ecclesial assembly, the ultimate decision is left to the Pope. 

The two bodies also have the same aim of influencing their broader church structures: The ecclesial assembly will synthesize insights for global application within the Catholic Church while the General Synod’s decisions often impact national laws due to the body’s statutory nature as part of the Church of England's governance system. 

The permanence of the General Synod also mirrors the hopes of those in charge of the synodal processes in the Catholic Church for an enduring synodal structure — a hope dating back at least to the “dream” of the late heterodox-leaning Cardinal Carlo Mario Martini, who envisioned a permanent synodal structure as a means of introducing heterodoxy into the Church and as an alternative to calling a Third Vatican Council.

In a March 20 article in the English progressive Catholic weekly The Tablet headlined “Pope Francis and the Permanent Revolution,” synodal participant and papal biographer Austen Ivereigh said the Synod on Synodality is now to be “at least” a “six-year reform event” and “considerably longer than the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).” 

Unlike the Council, he said it would be “giving agency not just to the world’s bishops but the People of God in general, and in this way completing what the Council began but never got to.” 

Its powers won’t stretch to encompass those exercised by the General Synod, as that body can affect national law, whereas the ecclesial assembly’s role will be more evaluative and advisory, offering recommendations for papal discernment rather than legislative enactments, with the Pope having the final say. 

Still, when it comes to issues of importance to Catholic synod managers and those making decisions in the General Synod, the two overlap. Both place a premium on inclusiveness, with the General Synod taking steps toward greater LGBTQ inclusion, full integration of women into leadership roles and decision-making, prioritizing racial justice, and reforms to ensure laypeople form a majority on parochial church councils. 

Such matters have been highly political and divisive within the Church of England, leading to internal schism, and much of the blame has been laid at the feet of synodal governance, exacerbated by what the 2000 Vatican declaration Dominus Iesus called its “gravely deficient situation” compared to the Catholic Church. 

Gavin Ashenden, a Catholic convert from the Church of England who was a member of the General Synod for 20 years, representing the constituency of university theologians, told the Register that the overall synodal experience in the Church of England has been one in which “the laity in particular brought with them a taste for the exercise of politics and power expressed through the flexing of democratic muscle in preference to biblical or traditional spirituality.” 

“In the absence of the authority of an Anglican magisterium, or episcopal leadership, theological reflection gave way to the secular Zeitgeist,” he said. “The spirit of the age triumphed in every contest. Synodality and democracy proved to be just a means of replacing the wisdom of holiness with a politicization of relativistic ethics and power politics.” 

 

Factionalism and Point-Scoring

The General Synod has often faced criticism from both the progressive and traditional wings of the ecclesial community. The body has been slated for factionalism and point-scoring rather than constructive dialogue, and its political atmosphere has been said to undermine effective decision-making and contribute to disillusionment among members. Critics have often cited departure from fidelity to Scripture and Anglican tradition as a primary reason. Several divisive issues in the Church of England, approved in the General Synod, have been attributed to this, from approving women priests in 1992 to the blessings of same-sex couples in 2024.

So, could the ecclesial assembly bear the same thorny fruit? Father Murray believes it will and asserts that it will serve as a tool for those “dissatisfied” with how “the ordination of women to the diaconate and the priesthood,” the “immorality of homosexual acts, and other contested teachings” have been “dealt with so far.” Those in charge are now, therefore, “putting their hopes for victory in an assembly not made up primarily of bishops.” 

Father Murray believes the ecclesial assembly and this new phase of the Synod on Synodality as a whole is “blatantly an attempt to seize power from the hierarchy and place it in the hands of selected laypeople who will finally set right what the obstructionist bishops have failed to change.” 

It is a “revolutionary innovation,” he added, “which contradicts Catholic doctrine and poses a grave threat to the unity of the Church and the spiritual welfare of the faithful.”

Cardinal Müller said the synod organizers are going only on a “feeling that they’re authorized by the Holy Spirit,” but he stressed that the Holy Spirit “is the spirit of the Son and of the Father. It is not an assembly. This has the spirit of an assembly in a romantic sense, a romantic feeling of the people. But we must look at what is the word of God and not the subjective feeling of some people who are recalling the Holy Spirit, but not the reality. They are promoting only their own ideas, and these ideas are coming more from sociology and psychology.”

“What I see objectively is that is going in the wrong direction,” he said. “It must be corrected according to Catholic ecclesiology.”