The Synod Office have received 104 National Syntheses out of the 114 Bishops conferences from around the world. But less than 50% of these National Syntheses are publicly available!

While the Synod Office “strongly recommended” that each Diocesan Syntheses should be made public, they left it to the individual bishop’s conferences to decide whether to publish their National Syntheses or not. And over 50% have reverted to their traditional position of SECRECY. The majority wish to avoid transparency and accountability. 

Pope Francis’ Synodal process had proposed listening at the grassroots level: From communities to parishes to diocese to country to continent to global synod. But it appears the majority of bishops prefer to mold their National Syntheses to their personal liking, rather than reflecting what the Holy Spirit is saying through the people of God. The synodal process should be transparent at all stages.

The Continental Syntheses now being prepared are to be reviewed in each country, which provides some scope for checking manipulation. Hopefully the committees will be free to speak openly where they identify manipulations.

The Synod in October 2023 is to be made up of 300 men and 1 woman. That should be changed by Pope Francis to 300 men and 300 women. That would show a clear move towards the “inverted pyramid” Pope Francis has spoken about.

Colm Holmes
Chair, We Are Church International
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M  +353 86 606 3636

We Are Church (Ireland) has given sterling service in offering links to national syntheses for the Synod on Communion, Participation and Mission 2023.

Please visit their page

The feast day of "Peter and Paul", 29 June, is traditionally the day when men, committed to life-long celibacy are ordained in the Catholic Church. But again this year many cathedrals will remain empty because there are no such candidates. Many Catholics have been calling for decades for the Church to welcome women and married people into the Ministerial Priesthood. Candidates are available.

The church reform movement "We are Church", however, is now treading new ground: Many Christian congregations have long been developing new ways in pastoral care and liturgy and are coping wonderfully with a new understanding of themselves as a priestly people without ordained clergy. Pastoral care is obviously more alive and more capable of change than canon law; practice is overtaking theory.

The crisis of the Church is in many ways a crisis in the understanding of priesthood. In particular, the Catholic understanding of presbyterial ordination is in urgent need of revision: The idea that ordination would bring about a transformation of being in the candidate and make him a "representative of Christ", even an "other Christ", who as such is above all non-ordained persons, must be abandoned, as must the discriminatory focus on celibate men.

Instead, it must be recognised that Jesus did not ordain anyone at all and that the installation of priests (sacerdotes) in the Catholic Church was an invention of the 3rd century, as theological and church-historical research clearly proves today. In an effort to shape and live the Church as Jesus wished the community of his followers to be, ordination in the Catholic Church must therefore be completely rethought.

"We are Church" therefore advocates a recognition of the consecration of all the people of God at Baptism and the introduction of the sacramental commissioning of chosen women and men into ministry and pastoral care.

Colm Holmes
Chair, We Are Church International
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
M +353 86 606 3636

“To live is to change and to have lived well is to have changed often” – Cardinal Newman

We Are Church International strongly supports the work of the German Synodal Path which follows the principle ‘what affects all should be decided by all’. The church in Germany is fortunate to have a structure which allows lay women and men to work with the clerics how best to follow Christ today.

Gamaliel cautioned the Sanhedrin against killing Jesus' disciples: If their ideas are of human origin, they would "come to nought"; but if they are from God, their ideas would be impossible to overthrow. Similarly some church prelates today want to crush the German Synodal Path out of fear for losing their power and privileges.

Yet over a period of many decades a small clique of men have built a Canon Law fortress to protect and perpetuate their power and privileges. Pope Francis has pointed the way forward towards an inverted pyramid and decentralisation to re-establish a focus on Christ’s one commandment: ‘To love one another as I have loved you.’

We Are Church International hopes that the Global Synod in October 2023 will adopt a highly significant part of the proposals from the German Synodal Path. In particular we would like to see a much more balanced representation of lay women & men and clerics to have voting powers at this synod. ‘Synodality’ can not mean only bishops make all decisions. At this time it is essential for the Vatican to be in direct contact with the German Synodal Path.

[For more information on the German Synodal Path inEnglish follow this link]

Adopted by ICRN in Warsaw September 2019

The Principles for a Charter of fundamental rights and responsibilities for Catholics were articulated by the Ordinary Synod of Bishops in 1971. Its final document was entitled “Justice in the World.” Importantly, the document preserves the remaining core of a larger project commissioned by Paul VI at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. It came to be known as the Lex Ecclesiae Fundamentalis (The Basic Law of the Church) and was meant to stand alongside of Paul’s Credo of the People of God. Together they were intended to capture Vatican II’s evangelical vision and mission of the Church and function as the moral principles that would inform the interpretation of Canon Law as well as provide a guide for the life and governance of the Church. Most importantly, the moral foundations of right relationship in the Christian community are grounded in the teaching of Jesus: So, whatever you wish that others do to you, do to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Mt 7: 12).

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International Church Reform Network