Synod proceedings will be secret

Sep 15, 2023

VATICAN: Pope Francis said that next month’s hotly anticipated Synod of Bishops will be open to the Holy Spirit — but not so much to the press or the public.

“This is not a television programme where we can talk about everything,” said the Pope.

Pope Francis’ remarks came during an inflight press conference back to Rome on September 4, after a four-day stay in Mongolia, and exactly four weeks before he is set to officially open the high-stakes, month-long Vatican meeting where a number of controversial issues facing the Catholic Church in the modern world will be discussed by Catholic bishops and lay representatives.

The Pope answered several questions about the synod and insisted on the need to ensure the privacy of the proceedings to allow participants to speak freely. He announced that a commission of the synod will provide the media with information each day but not with gossip of what clashes took place in the meetings.

Pope Francis, who has previously expressed frustration that synods before his papacy were too tightly controlled, told reporters that the religious character of the gathering must be preserved, in an apparent sign that the Pope is not willing to overhaul the standard operating procedures of this closely watched synod.

Confirming that the synod’s proceedings will not be public, the Holy Father said, “We must protect the privacy. This is not a television programme where we speak of everything; it is a religious moment, it is a moment for religious exchange.”

He said the synod members will each speak for three or four minutes and then there will be a period of silence with prayer, a moment of prayer. “Without this sense of prayer there is no synodality,” he said, “It is political, it is parliamentarianism, but the synod is not a parliament.”

Among the topics expected to be debated are a number of sensitive issues concerning the future of the Church and its structures — including the role of women in Church leadership, ministry to LGBTQ Catholics, access to the priesthood for married men and clergy sexual abuse.

“There will be a commission, presided over by Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, that will issue press releases on how the synod is going, [but in] the synod, we must protect the religiosity and the identity of the person who speaks,” said Pope Francis.

A journalist asked the Pope, “How can we journalists explain the synod to people without having access at least to the plenary sessions to be sure that the information given to us is true. Is there not some possibility of being more open?”

The Pope insisted that the synod will be “most open,” adding that Ruffini’s commission will provide updates each day of the proceedings. “This commission will be very respectful of the interventions of each [participant],” Pope Francis said, “but it will seek to not give room for gossip when it gives information on the proceedings of the synod, which is constitutive for the Church. If one wants to get the news that this one clashed with that one, that is gossip.”

He acknowledged that the commission will not have an easy task, “but it will tell that the synod went this way today, it will provide a synodal dimension, not a political one.”

“Remember the protagonist of the synod is the Holy Spirit,” Pope Francis said, “and how does one explain this [except] by transmitting the ecclesial happenings.”

The Pope’s remarks seemed to go against a number of efforts by Vatican officials, including those involved in organising the synod, to make the October meeting a more open and transparent gathering than past proceedings, with even the possibility of having livestreamed broadcasts for as many of the sessions as possible. — Agencies