Vatican pushes ‘new way of being Church’ in 3-year Synod rollout plan

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Vatican pushes ‘new way of being Church’ in 3-year Synod rollout plan
The document is intended to be read alongside, and indeed formed by, the final document from the Synod on Synodality's October 2024 session in Rome.



Synod on Synodality members. ©MichaelHaynes
Michael Haynes

Jul 7, 2025
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted, not all hyperlinks included from original]) — The Vatican’s synod office has issued guidelines for how to implement the three-year implementation phase of the multi-year Synod on Synodality, emphasizing that it is a manner of “growing in a new way of being Church.”

As announced last week, on July 7 the General Secretariat of the Synod published a 14-page document on how the Catholic Church at the local level ought to continue with Pope Francis’ multi-year Synod on Synodality. It comes amid much continued speculation about how new Pope Leo XIV will respond to the synod and what line he might take with it.

The document is intended to be read alongside, and indeed formed by, the final document from the synod’s October 2024 session in Rome. That meeting served as the culmination of the synod, which began in the autumn of 2021.

In March, from his hospital room, Pope Francis approved a three-year extension to the synod by virtue of the “implementation phase,” with a focus on the local churches, and with a concluding event of an ecclesial assembly in Rome in 2028.

Speaking at the time, the Secretary General of the Synod’s General Secretariat – Cardinal Mario Grech – said the new three-year stage was “to make exchanges and dialogue between Churches and within the Church concrete.”

Now in his new document, certain themes and suggestions are presented for the “local churches” to be able to live the new synodal style, as promoted by the Vatican. Ultimately, the new document is described as providing the plan on how to bring into effect this new manner of “being Church” in preparation for the October 2028 ecclesial assembly.

The synod has been highly controversial from the outset. Billed as being a way for the Church to understand itself and exist, the process has sought participation and advice from non-Catholics and those who no longer practice the faith. It has been mired by a number of campaigns for the overturning of established Church teaching – such as on the female diaconate, priestly celibacy, and the practicalities of Church authority.

Much of these issues have been consigned to a series of study groups which will now deliver their findings by the end of the year. One of the 10 study groups instituted by Pope Francis is the most controversial of the synod since it is given to the topic of the female diaconate – as requested at the October 2023 synod session.

But a revelation from today’s implementation guide is that Pope Leo has quietly formed two new study groups: dealing with “The Liturgy in Synodal Perspective” and “The Statute of Episcopal Conferences, Ecclesial Assemblies and Particular Councils.”

A “synodal liturgy” was highlighted by the October session’s final document. “Deepening the link between liturgy and synodality will help all Christian communities, in the diversity of their cultures and traditions, to adopt celebratory styles that make visible the face of a synodal Church,” the text reads. Questioned on this point during the synod briefing Saturday night, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich stated that there were no plans for a liturgical “revolution.”

Leo has already shown himself more attuned to liturgical tradition in remarking that the West needs to rediscover a “sense of mystery” in the liturgy. It remains to be seen what a synodal-style liturgy might resemble.

As outlined by the synod office today, the final document from October is “the reference point of the implementation phase” and hence the Vatican opined “it is essential to promote its knowledge, especially by members of synodal teams and those who at different levels are called to animate the implementation process.”

The final document, wrote the synod secretariat, is “an organic text, animated by its own internal dynamism as a consequence of the long journey of listening, confrontation and discernment of which it is the fruit.”

The synod has long been posited against the backdrop of the Second Vatican Council and described as the extension, or rather the implementation, of that event. This aspect the synod office re-iterated today, writing:

Listening to the Holy Spirit, remaining within the ecclesiological vision that the final document receives from the Second Vatican Council, the proper goal of the implementation phase is to discern steps to convert culture, relationships and ecclesial practices, and consequently to reform structures and institutions. This is a crucial point in the whole process: “Without concrete changes in the short term, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible, and this will alienate those members of the People of God who have drawn strength and hope from the synodal journey” (final document, no. 94).

Leading synod officials have decried resistance to or skepticism of the synod, and their urgency for the synod to be defining for the Catholic Church is contained again in the implementation phase document. They write:

At the same time – and here we are referring to the whole Church and local Church polarity mentioned above – the need to move forward together as the whole Church is also alive. Indeed, this is the main reason for launching the process of accompaniment and evaluation.

Listing 11 ways to accomplish this, the synod office includes mention of promoting “synodal spirituality,” increased lay roles of leadership, synod-style decision making at every level, and making adult conversion courses synodal in nature also:

Defending the process, the secretariat argued that “the synodal method is not reduced to a series of meeting management techniques, but is a spiritual and ecclesial experience that implies growing in a new way of being Church, rooted in the faith that the Spirit bestows his gifts on all the Baptized, beginning with the sensus fidei.”

Throughout the multi-year synod, its leaders have spoken about being “surprised” by “the Spirit”: something which critics have attested means simply attempting to argue against Catholic teaching on various issues. But doubling down on their theme, the synod team’s new document states that:

The synodal method has allowed us to allow ourselves to be surprised by the Holy Spirit and to reap unexpected fruits in the consultation and listening phase, as well as during the unfolding of the sessions of the Synodal Assembly, arousing the amazement and enthusiasm of many participants, as evidenced by many syntheses and documents received: communion among the Faithful, among the Pastors and among the Churches has been nurtured by participation in synodal processes and events, renewing the momentum and sense of co-responsibility for the common mission. This empowers us to look with confidence at the path ahead in the coming years, starting with the Jubilee appointment of synodal teams and participation bodies.

The Synod on Synodality has been beset with criticism from influential Church prelates such as Cardinals Raymond Burke, Joseph Zen, and Gerhard Müller, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, and former U.S. Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó.

Indeed, addressing the conclave which elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Zen described the synod’s outcome as a “matter of life and death” for the Church.

Leo was a participant in the synod, and is particularly close to key leaders of the synod’s governing office. Some of his speeches have suggested he may use the synod to gently re-emphasize Catholic teaching which was made vague under Pope Francis, but as yet, his young pontificate contains many unanswered questions.

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Catholics! Are You Ready for Your New, Permanent, Synodal Church? Leo Is.
The Synod’s Final Phase Isn’t Implementation, It’s Institutionalization]

Chris Jackson, Hiraeth in Exile [slightly adapted and reformatted - emphasis mine] | Jul 8, 2025

When Leo XIV was elected on May 8, 2025, some voices in Trad Inc. whispered that this was our chance for a course correction. The chaos of Francis, they said, might be smoothed by a more disciplined successor. “He’s a liturgy guy,” they claimed. “He might pull things back from the brink.”

Two months later, July 7, the Vatican released Pathways for the Implementation Phase of the Synod, a 14-page roadmap outlining the next three years of synodal transformation. If anything, the “reform of the Church” that began under Francis is not just continuing, it’s accelerating, institutionalizing, and being codified into the very DNA of the postconciliar Church. The theology behind this isn’t new. It’s the same populist anthropocentrism that shaped Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, the so-called “theology of the people,” now rebranded and globalized as the final phase of synodal implementation.

What Trad Inc. promised would be a reset is turning out to be a reinforcement.


The Language of Revolution, the Tone of Bureaucracy

The new Pathways document is, on its surface, bland and managerial. Full of phrases like “shared frameworks,” “evaluation pathways,” and “local adaptation,” it cloaks its intentions in committee-speak. But make no mistake: this is not a mere organizational plan. It is, in the Vatican’s own words, a “new way of being Church.”

That phrase alone should trigger alarms.

Throughout the document, phrases like “discernment,” “dialogue,” “listening,” and “accompaniment” are deployed as theological cover for dismantling what remains of the Church’s hierarchical, sacramental, and doctrinal coherence. The Final Document from the 2024 Synod (to which Pathways is explicitly tethered) is declared part of the “ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter,” a line that quietly attempts to grant binding authority to a process full of doctrinal ambiguities and anthropocentric novelties.

And now, Pathways lays out the marching orders. Every diocese, parish, bishop, and lay association is to reorient itself around “synodal processes,” “synodal spirituality,” and “synodal governance.” If this sounds vague, that’s intentional. It’s part of the ambiguity strategy they have used very effectively since Vatican II. The only non-negotiable is participation in the process itself. Resistance is labeled “clericalism,” “nostalgia,” or “failure to listen.”


The Spirit of COEPAL Lives On

What’s truly damning is how openly the theology behind all of this has been confessed.

Claudio Iván Remeseira’s recent Where Peter Is article makes it explicit: the synodal revolution is not some recent innovation or Franciscan anomaly. It is the mature fruit of the Argentine “theology of the people,” developed in the 1970s by COEPAL: a synodal task force of bishops and left-leaning theologians in Buenos Aires. Francis was not its founder but its most successful inheritor. And his theological heirs, Cardinal Fernández and Fr. Carlos Galli, are now shaping the next phase under Leo XIV.

This theology deliberately abandoned the “vertical,” hierarchical, sacramental model of the Church in favor of the “People of God.” It was heavily shaped by class struggle, Peronist populism, and a rejection of preconciliar ecclesiology as authoritarian and colonial. What replaced it? Dialogue, process, and popular piety weaponized as pseudo-magisterium. The hierarchy remains, but only as a rubber stamp for whatever emerges from the group discernment process.

Leo XIV, we are told, will continue this trajectory.


Sr. Nathalie and the Soft Enforcement of Synodality

On social media, Sr. Nathalie Becquart (now functionally the Vatican’s chief synod lobbyist) celebrated the Pathways release as the start of “our synodal conversion at all levels of the Church.” Note the language: not discussion, not reception: conversion. The synod is no longer a means to an end; it is the new faith itself.

Sr. Nathalie and her team are clear: the Final Document is not just a set of guidelines. It must be read as part of the ordinary magisterium. This is a staggering claim: one that allows heterodox concepts (such as the expansion of lay governance, synodal decision-making, and experimentation with liturgical forms) to enter the bloodstream of the Church without a single binding doctrinal definition.

This is Vatican II’s methodology perfected: no anathemas, no precise heresies, just “conversations,” study groups, and endless pastoral applications that slowly but surely reshape the Church’s institutions, language, and beliefs.


The Eleven Pillars of Synodal Restructuring

Buried in the Pathways document are eleven areas of mandated change. These include:

-  Expanded lay leadership and governance
   
-  Synodal decision-making processes at every level
   
-  Evaluation and accountability structures enforced in every diocese
   
-  Parish and diocesan synods made ordinary
   
-  Mandatory implementation of “participatory bodies” in parishes
   
-  Synodal reform of Christian initiation and catechesis
   
-  New “forms of ministry” responsive to “pastoral needs”
   
-  Digital and intercultural outreach for the peripheries
   
-  Synodal spirituality and prayer formats
   
-  Structural integration of women into leadership roles
   
-  Increased transparency and data-based pastoral governance
   

No traditional Catholic, not even a conservative Novus Ordo bishop, could implement these without a rupture from the Church’s past. But that’s the point. As the document warns: without “concrete changes,” the synodal vision will not be credible. In other words, dissenters must either transform or be left behind.


The Francis–Leo Continuum

Some might ask: what of Leo XIV? Has he not signaled, in his first speeches, a desire to reclaim the mystery of the liturgy and show more respect for tradition?

Perhaps. But actions speak louder than symbolic flourishes. By approving Pathways on June 26 and publicly backing the ongoing structure of the synod, Leo has aligned himself with the postconciliar consensus. And his key advisors thus far (Cardinals Roche, Romero, and Fernández all remain central) suggest that even if the tone changes, the substance will not.

What we are witnessing is an institutionalization of Francis’ revolution under a more refined papal manager.


A Synodal Church for a Post-Catholic Age

The synod is not a council. It has no charism of infallibility. It has produced no binding creed. But that’s precisely how it advances. It avoids dogmatic confrontation while fostering systemic erosion. It relies not on truth but on processes. Not on teaching but on storytelling. Not on clarity but on ambiguity blessed by participation.

What began as an Argentine theological movement to mediate between Peronism and Marxism is now the governing ecclesiology of the universal Church.

And under Leo XIV, that project is thriving.