“Synodality is a prophetic sign that can enlighten the world because it is not just about bringing democracy to the Church, as many have stated, but it goes much further,” Cardinal Cristóbal Romero of the Archdiocese of Rabat, Morocco said in an interview with Religión Digital.
Romero was a voting member of the recently concluded session of the Synod on Synodality and is a staunch proponent of the endeavor. Speaking to the press in Rome last month, Romero predicted the Church would emerge from the Synod “more catholic, more universal.”
Interviewed by Religión Digital, Romero said the Synod was “worthwhile not only for the Church but for everyone.”
Moral obligation for all
Expanding on the remark that the Synod “goes much further” than “bringing democracy,” Romero commented that the Synod offers something better.
“Democracy,” he said, “is the struggle for the majority and consists of several forces in dispute to win the elections and govern according to the common good.” But the system is not perfect, he added, since “the government does not usually consider what the opposition says, and the other way around: the opposition often criticizes negatively everything the government does.”
Instead, synodality is aimed at “consensus,” he stated. “Synodality is a process of discernment so that decision-making is consensual to the maximum.”
Romero continued by making the striking statement that a decision made with the majority consensus in the Synod is “morally” binding on those who oppose it:
And when a decision is made, even those who disagreed are morally obligated to support something that has been decided after a process in which we have all been able to participate and express opinions and even pray together to ask for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
In the end, it is the pope, the bishop, the parish priest who, after having listened to everyone, and not capriciously, makes a decision and everyone goes that way. Democracy is little, we want more: we want fraternity, joint work, search for the common good.
The cardinal’s comments are notable for a number of reasons, not least of which is his depiction of the Synod as somewhat akin to a parliament, even though Pope Francis has repeatedly tried to distance the Synod from such an image. Traditionally and legally, the Synod of Bishops is an advisory body offering counsel to the Pope. (Canon 342)
At the conclusion of a synod, the secretariat submits the synod’s final document to the Pope, who decided whether to write his own text based on it. For Romero to argue that those who oppose a certain proposal of any synod are morally bound to abide by it, if the proposal receives a majority consensus of votes, would appear to be a rejection of the theology and Canon Law behind the purpose of the Synod of Bishops.
In October, however, Francis made the striking move to adopt the Synod on Synodality’s final text as his own, meaning that under the 2018 Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis communio, once the final document of a synod “is expressly approved by the Roman Pontiff, the Final Document participates in the ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter.”
But the Synod’s final document remains full of open questions, suggestions for future actions, and outlines of proposals for continued “discernment.” The greatest objection was to paragraph 60 (258 for/97 against) dealing with certain questions relating to the role of women in the Church, and including the statement that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open.”
Romero’s argument would hold that all who opposed this statement are morally bound to believe it since the Synod’s majority decided upon it.
However, Church teaching infallibly states that the matter is closed and that women cannot be ordained to Holy Orders. One such pronouncement is found in Pope John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, where he wrote, “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
In 2018, Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, S.J., then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, defended the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis as bearing the mark of “infallibility,” with John Paul II having “formally confirmed and made explicit, so as to remove all doubt, that which the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium has long considered throughout history as belonging to the deposit of faith.”
Romero himself has emerged during the last two years as somewhat of a more notable figure in the Church due to his prominent support for the Pope’s Synod on Synodality and his warm welcome of Fiducia Supplicans blessing for same-sex couples.
He famously led the Northern African bishops in their acceptance of Fiducia just days after Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo declared that the text would not be implemented in the entire continent of Africa.