The picture was symbolic: for the first time since the beginning of the corona pandemic, Pope Francis celebrated a service with several thousand believers on Sunday under the bronze canopy in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

That fit well with the occasion of the mass, because the Pope opened the world synod and it should deal with how as many simple Catholics as possible can be involved in church decision-making processes.

Thomas Jansen

Editor in politics.

  • Follow I follow

Believers should debate this in parishes and dioceses around the world. The proposals developed in the process will then be the basis for discussion for the Synod of World Bishops in the Vatican in autumn 2023. Their theme is: "For a synodal church: fellowship, participation and mission." For the first time, the church base is so comprehensively involved in the preparation of such a bishops' meeting.

It is about "discovering with astonishment that the Holy Spirit blows in ever surprising ways to suggest new ways and languages," said Francis in his sermon on Sunday. Previously on Saturday he had once again rejected expectations that the Vatican's “Synodal Path” was about more democracy in the Catholic Church: “I emphasize that the Synod is not a parliament, that the Synod is not an opinion poll,” said he during the opening event of the World Synod in the Vatican in front of cardinals, bishops and lay people from all over the world. The synod is rather "an ecclesiastical event and the protagonist of the synod is the Holy Spirit".

At the same time, Francis admitted that there are still considerable deficits in the participation of all believers.

"We cannot avoid registering the discomfort and suffering of many workers in pastoral care, the participatory organs in the dioceses and parishes, and women who are often on the fringes," said the Pope.

Above all, the dialogue and interaction between priests and lay people must be improved.

Francis lamented a “certain elitist demeanor” of priests who behaved like “masters in the house” to laypeople.

The World Synod offers the chance to make the Church an “open place where everyone feels at home”.

However, this process should result in “not a different church”, but a church “that is different, that is different,” explained the Pope.

Parishes should make inputs

The global church dialogue process is to begin next weekend in the individual dioceses. According to the will of the Vatican organizers, the General Secretariat of the World Synod of Bishops, discussions should first take place at parish level, then the proposals should be bundled in the diocese. The entries of the dioceses are to be summarized by the national bishops' conferences in a paper that will be sent to Rome.

With the “Synodal Path”, which the Catholic Church in Germany has been following since the end of 2019, the Pope's project only connects the basic concern of involving as many believers as possible in church decision-making processes. In contrast to the German dialogue process, the Pope does not specify any content-related topics. While the German Catholics are debating the position of women in the church, the distribution of power, the priestly way of life and the church's sexual morality, at the global church level it is apparently primarily about structures and procedures for the participation of the church base. The agenda is still open, said the organizer of the World Synod, Mario Cardinal Grech, on Saturday. The abuse scandal that caused the “Synodal Way” in Germany does not play a role in the announcements of the papal project.

How the two dialogue processes in Germany can be specifically linked is still open.

The interest of the German Bishops' Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics in the papal project has so far not been very great.

Neither of them had sent any official representatives to the opening event in the Vatican.