The synod on synodality released its final document Saturday at the end of its second month-long session in Rome, calling for increased lay participation in Church decision-making processes.
The 28,000-word text was published Oct. 26 after Pope Francis announced that he had decided not to follow the custom of releasing a post-synodal apostolic exhortation.
Instead, the pope said he was confirming the document personally, adopting it into his own ordinary papal magisterium.
In a final address to synod delegates, the pope said that “what we have approved is sufficient.”
“In the document there are already very concrete indications that can be a guide for the mission of the Churches, in the different continents, in the different contexts: that is why I make it immediately available to all, that is why I said it should be published,” he said.
“I want, in this way, to recognize the value of the synodal journey completed, which through this document I hand over to the holy faithful people of God.”
According to Pope Francis’ 2018 apostolic exhortation Episcopalis communio, the final document “participates in the ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter,” if it is expressly approved by the pope.
At an Oct. 26 press conference, synod special secretary Msgr. Riccardo Battocchio said that although the final document was part of the ordinary Magisterium, it was not “normative” in the sense of being a legal text which creates “rules”.
“The document is a calling to conversion” and “a way of living,” he said.
The Vatican published the voting tallies for each of the document’s 155 paragraphs.
All paragraphs were approved, but the paragraph with the highest number of “no” votes was the 60th, which addressed women’s role in the Church, saying that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open.”
The paragraph received 258 votes in favor and 97 against.
Speaking at the press conference, the synod on synodality’s general rapporteur Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said the vote pointed to “a very delicate problem.” But he noted that the statement concerning women deacons was now the pope’s ruling and reflected the pope’s repeated calls for the matter to be studied further.
The paragraph with the next highest number of “no” votes was the 27th, which focused on the liturgy, calling on Christian communities “to adopt celebratory styles that make visible the face of a synodal Church.”
It received 312 votes in favor and 43 against. During the press conference, Cardinal Hollerich and synod secretary general Cardinal Mario Grech explained that this was a reflection of feedback received during the first two stages of the global synodal process and no specific reforms, or any “liturgical revolution,” had been discussed or discussed as planned.
Paragraph 78, addressing a proposal “to establish a ministry of listening and accompaniment,” attracted the third-highest number of “no” votes.
It received 322 votes in favor and 33 against.
The final document called for lay people to “be given greater opportunities for participation, also exploring new forms of service and ministry in response to the pastoral needs of our time.”
It appealed for increased participation “in Church discernment processes and all phases of decision-making processes (drafting, making, and confirming decisions).”
It also asked for more lay people to be given responsibilities in dioceses and Church institutions including seminaries, and for “a greater number of qualified lay people serving as judges in all canonical processes.”
One of the more heated debates at this October’s session of the synod on synodality reportedly concerned a proposal in the working document to recognize national bishops’ conferences “as ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority.”
The final document said that synod participants requested further work “to specify precisely the domain of the doctrinal and disciplinary competence of episcopal conferences.”
It said: “Without compromising the authority of the bishop within the Church entrusted to him or putting at risk either the unity or the catholicity of the Church, the collegial exercise of such competence can further the authentic teaching of the one faith in an appropriate and enculturated way within different contexts in addition to identifying fitting liturgical, catechetical, disciplinary, pastoral theology, and spiritual expression.”
Synod members also asked for “a process of assessment of the experience of the concrete functioning of episcopal conferences, of the relations among the bishops and with the Holy See so as to identify the particular reforms needed.”
They added that it should be specified “that decisions made by an episcopal conference impose an ecclesial obligation on each bishop who participated in the decision in relation to his own diocese.”
In a possible nod to the backlash against the December 2023 Vatican declaration Fiducia supplicans, the final document said: “Before publishing important normative documents, the dicasteries are exhorted to initiate a consultation with episcopal conferences and with the corresponding structures of the Eastern Churches sui iuris.”
In a concluding section entitled “A Feast for All Peoples,” the final document said that “the ultimate meaning of synodality is the witness that the Church is called to give to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
“We can live the communion that saves by walking in a synodal way, in the intertwining of our vocations, charisms. and ministries,” it said.
