The two-day meeting of all the world’s cardinals, which Pope Francis held on August 29-30, was something truly extraordinary for this pontificate — and not just because it was held, contrary to custom, in the sweltering heat of the late Roman summer.
This was only the second time that Francis has convened the entire College of Cardinals for a discussion on a specific topic. The first gathering was an extraordinary consistory in February 2014 at which Cardinal Walter Kasper delivered the opening presentation.
It was part of preparations for the Synod of Bishops’ extraordinary general assembly on family and marriage (October 2014) and the ordinary general assembly on the same topic that was held a year later (October 2015).
Cardinal Kasper’s thesis, which advocated some changes in the way the Church deals with divorced and remarried Catholics, did not go unchallenged. A good number of cardinals harshly criticized his position, and indirectly the pope’s as well.
Looking at Roman Curia reform
This is one of the reasons Francis waited eight years before again calling together all the members of the College of Cardinals.
The topic of the August gathering was quite different from the one in 2014: the reform of the Roman Curia, which Francis unveiled on March 19 with the publication of the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium.
More than a consultation, which should have happened before the promulgation of the constitution, the meeting was meant to prepare the cardinals for what is already codified in law.
Nonetheless, some further modifications are still possible, given the pope’s incremental way of implementing reforms.
Not all the cardinals agreed with important parts of the apostolic constitution, especially with Praedicate Evangelium’s passage that separates the exercise of Church governance from sacramental ordination.
This introduces “lay governance” on a theological foundation that contradicts the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) as spelled out in Lumen Gentium.
No high drama this time
But there was no high drama at this meeting as there was at the extraordinary consistory of 2014.
There are three reasons why.
The first is that the reform of the Roman Curia is something quite technical and juridically complex. Its results are yet to be seen and will largely depend on the top personnel Francis appoints, especially the new prefects of the dicasteries.
The cardinals discussed the separation of the power of governance from that of Holy Orders (and so lay people being given senior positions in the Roman Curia), as well as the question of what it means to be a synodal and hierarchical Church. They also focused on the issue of Vatican finances.
These are all important topics, but they were always unlikely to stir strong emotions in many cardinals (and in some quarters of the Catholic Church, especially in the United States) in the same way family and marriage did eight years before.
Outdistancing the opposition
The second reason there was little drama is that, after nine-and-a-half years as pope, Francis has outlived and overcome many of his opponents.
Some of them have died, while many others have marginalized themselves by expressing embarrassingly extreme views on certain political and ecclesial issues.
Since 2014, Francis has created many new cardinals who lead dioceses around the world, and this also influenced the mood of the August meeting.
But there is also a third and more important reason that there were no real fireworks this time — the dreaded “paradigm shift” in doctrine did not take place and those in opposition to Francis have since become convinced that anything the pope has done can be quickly reversed.
The thesis put forth by Cardinal Kasper (not a liberal by any means, judging by his recent criticisms of the German “Synodal Path”) was that doctrine is not set in stone.
In his opening presentation at the 2014 extraordinary consistory there was this passage, for example:
“The doctrine of the Church is not a stagnant lagoon, but a torrent that flows from the source of the Gospel, into which the faith experience of the people of God of all centuries has flowed. It’s a living tradition that today, like many other times throughout history, has reached a critical point and which, in given the ‘signs of the times’, it needs to be continued and deepened.”
Pastoral practice vs doctrine
Eight years after the 2014 Synod assembly on family and marriage, it’s fair to ask whether there has been a recalculation in Francis’ roadmap, or what that roadmap was in the first place, or if there has been a lack of theological backing of Francis’ pontificate.
“For years, in fact, a theological populism has spread in the Church which claims to defend Francis from the reactionaries by repeating that the pope ‘does not touch doctrine’, it’s only about ‘pastoral practice’,” Church historian Alberto Melloni so accurately put in an August 26 article in the Italian daily La Repubblica.
“This is an offense against doctrine (which is not a monolith, but a hierarchy of truths), against what is consider ‘pastoral’ (which is an adjective of the way of being Jesus and not the marketing of the sacred for fools), and against the successor of Peter (who is a teacher of the faith and not a security guard placed in front of a vault),” Melloni wrote (translation mine).
Whenever the pope touched some critical issues for a certain kind of reactionary Catholicism in the West, the pushback from some influential cardinals, bishops, and the Catholic media system has been substantial. They have essentially argued that “no one can change doctrine, not even the pope”.
And they have even leveled the subtle, yet unmistakable, accusation that the Jesuit pope is bordering on heresy.
Is it enough to change the pastoral approach without changing doctrine?
This pushback continues every time someone, even from one of the Pontifical Academies in Rome, tries to say something that might be seen as a crack in the doctrinal dam for the post-Vatican II — such as revisiting the meaning of Humanae Vitae.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are some overzealous defenders of Pope Francis who have fallen into that same trap.
For instance, there are those who retreat to the last line of defense in their uncoupling of pastoral and doctrinal change and deny that a Church more welcoming of LGBTQ Catholics implies changes in previous theological and magisterial statements.
The unaddressed — and therefore unanswered — question remains whether it is possible to be a more welcoming Church without a doctrine that leaves no doubt about such acceptance.
We have seen that Francis is not afraid to defend Vatican II from neo-traditionalists, on not just liturgical reform.
But the overall message has become, indeed, defensive. Hence the temptation has been to reduce what Francis does as pastoral, but not doctrinal, especially on intra-ecclesial issues dealing with ministry.
Some of the changes he has made, such as in his decision in January 2021 to open the stable and institutionalized ministries of lector and acolyte to women, are not being enthusiastically implemented throughout the Church — not even in Rome.
Downplaying expectations for change
This question of the relationship between pastoral practice and doctrine does not concern only our understanding of Francis’ pontificate, but also the “synodal process” now that it enters its crucial phase, in the next 12 months leading up to the next assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2023.
Will the synodal process bring about change in language and style or even a change in substance on some issues? We will have to wait and see.
Two cardinals who have major roles in overseeing the 2023 gathering — Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, and Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich SJ, the papally-appointed general rapporteur of the assembly — seemed to downplay expectations for major changes during an August 26 press conference at the Vatican.
But in the last few months these two cardinals have defended the freedom and orthodoxy of people to make suggestions in the local synodal process, especially the Germans’ “Synodal Path”.
In doing so both men have kept a healthy distance from other cardinals and Roman Curia officials that have an interest in silencing the hopes of those Catholics who responded to the synodal consultation.
A false dichotomy
Historians know that it takes a long time for change to come about in the Church.
Francis’ pontificate is far from over, and in some sense we are only now beginning to see more support for him in the College of Cardinals, from its members in Rome and those around the world. This was evident from the August meeting.
But the question now is whether the much-needed change, on those issues where the tradition and the magisterium clearly need aggiornamento, will be supported by the courage to refuse the false alternative between pastoral practice and doctrine.
The temptation is to do with Francis’ pontificate what has already been done many times with Vatican II — neutralize him by opposing pastoral practice to doctrine.
The problem is that, during this pontificate, those who strongly disagree with Francis — and even those who support him — have repeated this slogan: “pastoral change, yes; doctrinal development, no”.
But no one can explain precisely what this means because it is a false dichotomy.
In the history of the Church, pastoral change has always implied and caused doctrinal development and vice-versa.