One of Pope Francis' keywords was the Greek word parrhesia, which means frankness in German.
He did not borrow this ancient term from the philosopher Michel Foucault, who wanted to recognize the virtue of discursive truthfulness in it.
Like the French agnostic, Francis thought of the apostle Paul and his willingness to bear witness, whether opportune or inopportune, to God's saving work.
That's how it should be in the Church, Cardinal Bergoglio said before he was elected Pope.
Openness means going out of oneself as a church, to the geographical fringes and to the fringes of human existence.
One can, indeed has to, argue about whether what the Catholics in this country are doing with their reform project "Synodal Way" serves this goal or not.
The Pope missed the opportunity to do that on Friday.
By letting the bishops sit like a school class, he made them feel what he had repeatedly meant to them in his very own, largely fact-free frankness: that he didn't think much of the project.
A Protestant church in Germany is enough.
If the bishops were seriously hoping to reveal their motives to Francis and to be able to dispel even the strongest doubts, they should ask themselves why they are still naïve than they should be.
Only death preceded the Pope
Duping bishops in Germany has a long tradition in the Vatican.
In the 1990s, John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger knew very well that Catholics in this country were on the wrong track in remaining on the legal counseling for pregnant women.
In the 1970s, Paul VI negotiated
and his chief diplomat Casaroli behind the bishops' backs about the separation of the church in the GDR from that in the Federal Republic.
Only death preceded the Pope.
History doesn't repeat itself.
But the repeat structures are alive as ever.