Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB yesterday delivered an address at the Theological-Pastoral Forum for the Synod in Rome. Source: ACBC Media Blog.
The forum was held in the auditorium of the Jesuit Generalate, looking at the topic “Synodality and the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome”.
Archbishop Costelloe said his task was to share his thoughts on “the relationship between the role of the Bishop of Rome and the role of the body of bishops gathered in the Synodal Assembly together with lay women and men, religious, and other clergy”.
“In essence we are reflecting on the realities and the possibilities of the network of relationships which hold together synodality, collegiality and the exercise of the primacy.”
Archbishop Costelloe said the synodal process “holds a key to understanding how the Synod of Bishops can be of service to the Pope in his role and also of assistance to the bishops themselves”.
He discussed his experience of the “threefold dynamic interplay between synodality, collegiality and the primacy” at both the Synod on Synodality and Australia’s Plenary Council.
“That council was a local experience which, particularly in terms of its structure and procedures, anticipated the present Synod,” Archbishop Costelloe said.
“Both experiences, overwhelmingly positive, have alerted me to the very real danger that what should be a circular process can easily become a linear process: in such a scenario the first stage of the process is to consult the faithful, the second stage of the process is for the bishops to discern the presence or otherwise of harmony between what the faithful have said and what the Church teaches, and the third stage of the process is to submit the eventual conclusions, proposals and decisions to the Pope for approval.”
He said the problem with this understanding is that it “separates into three distinct groups” the faithful, the bishops “who act as judges and even censors of what the people have said” and the Pope, “who simply receives at the end the final outcomes in which he himself has previously had little part to play”.
“Such an approach, if too rigidly followed, perpetuates a pyramidal structuring of the Church. Such a structure is not in harmony with the vision of Pope Francis, or with the theology of Vatican II.”
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Archbishop Costelloe addresses Synod forum in Rome (ACBC Media Blog)
