Roman Catholic Church Synod on Synodality “most ambitious expression to date of Francis’s pastoral outreach.”

 

“A radical departure from the traditional ecclesiology of the church.” That’s what Michael Higgins, an expert on the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Francis, called the Synod on Synodality, “a church-shaping event, the most ambitious expression to date of Francis’s pastoral outreach.”

 

What makes it different from past gatherings, he said, is how the pope has structured it: as an exercise in listening. This is a change from how the church has operated in the past, Higgins said, noting the Roman Catholic Church is not generally seen as a body that is open to dialogue.

Francis’s goal is to change the way information flows, Higgins said. “He sees it as an inverted pyramid, with the pope at the bottom, not the top, as a servant of the church.” (As in the photo above, with him sitting with the delegates.)

 

Read more about this gathering, which some say is as important as the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, in my most recent Free Press column.

Photo above from EWTN Norway.