For those concerned about making sure the Synod on Synodality doesn’t open the way to contested changes in Church teaching and practice, the draft version of its final document appears to be good enough. 

But it might not stay that way. 

That’s because 1,000 amendments to the text, which was released to delegates at the start of this week, are currently being incorporated into the final document by a small writing team overseen by a commission of synod members. 

That text, in turn, will be read to delegates on the morning of Saturday, Oct. 26, who will then vote on it that evening, paragraph by paragraph, before its final approval. 

And the wait to see what’s in and what’s out of the final version is leaving some delegates on tenterhooks.  

“We’re not over the hump yet,” one synod member told the Register. 

The Register spoke to three delegates from three different continents to get a sense of the initial draft, which was distributed in paper-only format to synod participants to mitigate leaks to the press. Accounts varied, with one delegate emphasizing that the document is solidly “Catholic,” and another suggesting that it still lacks an ideal level of theological precision. The consensus, however, is that the current draft is at least “not bad,” and doesn’t include any clear openings to major changes like the decentralization of doctrinal authority nor lay approval of bishops’ governance decisions. 

“I don’t see any major problems with it,” one of the synod members told the Register. 

At least for now. 

One topic where delegates will be keeping an eye out for any changes in the final version is the doctrinal authority of bishops’ conferences. 

During synod proceedings, a proposal to “recognize episcopal conferences as ecclesial subjects with doctrinal authority’” was met with significant pushback inside Paul VI Hall, the Register previously reported. Several delegates warned that the proposal could fracture Church unity by potentially allowing different national bishops conferences to issue contradictory teachings on faith and morals. 

Organizers even called a theological expert at the synod, Father Gilles Routhier of Canada, to attempt to explain the concept of decentralization of doctrinal authority in order to assuage concerns.  

But it appears that the pushback of the delegates was taken into account.  

According to one delegate and confirmed by another, the draft version simply asks for greater precision regarding the doctrinal and disciplinary authority that episcopal conferences already have according to current canon law. In the same context, the document also mentions not putting the unity and catholicity of the Church at risk. 

German Priority 

The push for doctrinal decentralization is believed to be the single greatest priority of delegates who support the highly controversial German Synodal Way. A collaboration of the German Bishops Conference and a powerful lay organization called the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the multi-year process has pushed for acceptance of same-sex relations, gender ideology, and the attempted ordination of women in Church life.  

In the process, some aspects of the German Synodal Way have been strongly condemned by Pope Francis, as well as prelates from around the world. 

One delegate shared that if the pro-Synodal Way delegates were disappointed with the outcome on Saturday morning, that would be a sign that the final document had avoided any dangerous devolutions of doctrinal authority. 

But at least for now, Germans angling for significant changes are not giving up hope. 

Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German Bishops Conference, said that he submitted 26 Synodal Way-inspired amendments to his small group on Wednesday, and had to try to convince them to accept them. To the Diocese of Limburg bishop’s surprise, he said that they all were “unanimously adopted at this table.”

“I did not expect that,” said Bishop Bätzing. 

Of the 1,000 amendments to the draft version that were submitted, synod communications head Paolo Ruffini said at an Oct. 23 press conference that 900 were approved at small groups, while 100 were submitted by individuals.  

Thomas Söding, the vice president the ZdK and a theological expert at the synod, shared in his Oct. 22 entry on his personal synod blog that he and other experts at the synod “were in demand” in advising small groups on their amendments to the final text. 

Similar, Myriam Wiljens, a Dutch canonist who has lived and worked in Germany for over 30 years, told the Register after the Oct. 23 press conference that the final outcome is still undecided. 

“We are still in the process of all these [amendments],” said Wiljens, who has said that Pope Francis’s emphasize on synodality hits a “reset button” on how the Catholic Church practices governance. “And now we have to see what will come out of that.” 

Thus, the current interim period at the Synod on Synodality is one of the few times when most of the 368 synod delegates and associated experts are on the outside, looking in, waiting to see how the final document turns out on Saturday. Just like the rest of us.