Vatican Synod proposes lay involvement in choosing new bishops

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Synod published two new reports calling for lay faithful and other ecclesial groups to take a more direct role in bishops’ decisions and visits to Rome.

On September 8, the General Secretariat of the Synod published two final reports proposing changes to relations between bishops, consecrated religious, ecclesial associations and the Holy See, including a recommendation that diocesan faithful participate in preparing the reports bishops submit before their official visits to Rome.

Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, summarized the two documents by emphasizing what he called “differentiated co-responsibility,” adding that “there is no mission without transformed relationships.”

Report No. 6 examines the relationship between bishops, consecrated life and ecclesial associations, while Report No. 7 examines aspects of the person and ministry of bishops, including the selection of episcopal candidates, the judicial role of bishops and their official ad limina visits to Rome. The Report No. 7 has been published in a first and a second part.

Both documents call for a “relational conversion capable of renewing the ways of walking together in the universal Church” that would move beyond strictly “purely hierarchical approaches” in favor of shared “discernment.” In particular, Report No. 6 requests the participation of the laity in decision-making processes and synodal structures, while Report No. 7 proposes involving the “People of God” in drafting reports for the ad limina visits and in the selection of episcopal candidates. The bishops’ ad limina visits are transformed from a hierarchical report to the Pope into a moment of circular dialogue, prepared and verified by laypeople at the diocesan level.

The so-called ad limina visits are institutional meetings that diocesan bishops from around the world are required to carry out periodically in Rome (traditionally every five years). During this visit, the bishops go on pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, meet with the Pope, and present a detailed report on the spiritual, moral, and economic state of their dioceses to the various Dicasteries of the Roman Curia.

Equally serious is the fact that Report No. 7 requires that a candidate for the episcopate explicitly possess a “disposition toward innovation” and the “ability to adapt to new situations.” However, the idea that doctrine and ecclesial praxis must evolve in order to conform to the “spirit of the age” is the central principle of theological modernism, as condemned by Pope St. Pius X.

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The same report also proposes subjecting the selection of bishops to confidential questionnaires distributed to the “People of God,” to lists of lay informants, and even to online checks.

Including the laity in governing roles means overturning traditional doctrine on ecclesiastical authority. In particular, the idea that governance in the Church derives from the community of the faithful is a heresy solemnly condemned by the Magisterium. Pope Pius VI, in the bull Auctorem fidei (1794), infallibly condemns as “heretical” the proposition that the power of ministry and ecclesiastical governance is conferred upon pastors by the community of the faithful. Pope St. Pius X renewed this condemnation in Pascendi dominici gregis (1907).

Furthermore, the very purpose of the Church’s existence is presented differently in these documents compared to the traditional understanding. According to Tradition, the Church’s end is the preaching of revealed truth and the administration of the sacraments for the salvation of souls. In these synodal documents, however, its purpose is framed instead as “relational conversion,” empathetic listening, the inclusion of the peripheries and the vulnerable, and is carried out through administrative processes of “accountability” and reporting.

The documents also emphasizes the implementation of “gender equality” and “co-responsibility” in workplaces and the participation of consecrated laywomen even in the election of bishops and chaplains. This increasingly horizontal conception stands in opposition to the Church’s vertical and hierarchical structure, which is of divine right.

Finally, once again the Synod advances the idea that the juridical vision of the Church should be replaced with a “charismatic” one. Report No. 6 theorizes a “co-essentiality” between “hierarchical and charismatic gifts,” requesting also that institutes of consecrated life and lay associations participate on an equal footing in drafting diocesan pastoral plans and in all decisions of the local Church.

According to traditional doctrine, however, the hierarchy and the juridical foundation of ecclesial life cannot be called into question. The authority to judge the authenticity of charisms and to govern the Church belongs solely to the legitimate pastors — that is, the bishops in communion with their visible head, the Pope. Moreover, this “horizontal” equalization between charism and institution mirrors the errors of liberation theology.

Theologians such as Leonardo Boff employed the same conceptual framework. Applying Marxism to ecclesiology, Boff argued that, throughout history, there has been an “expropriation of the means of production by the clergy at the expense of the Christian people”; the modernist revolution would serve to return these “means of production” — namely, the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of governance — to the “People of God.” The hierarchy is thus portrayed as an oppressive superstructure from which the Christian people must emancipate themselves.

The reports were presented as proposals rather than decisions already approved by the Pope. A statement from the General Secretariat said that Pope Leo XIV directed their publication so that the fruits of the study groups’ reflection and discernment could be shared with the entire Church. The proposals will now have to be translated into operational measures by the competent Vatican dicasteries and the General Secretariat of the Synod before being submitted to the Pope.