(This is my own translation from chinese, please disregard others)
The misuse of the words Synod, Synodal, Synodality has caused a great deal of confusion in the Church; it has left us, the non-European Catholics, with an everlasting source of confusion.
So far we seem to be able to translate Synodal only as “walking together”: Synodal Church is “a Church of people who walk together”, but this is absolutely inaccurate.
This only emphasizes the etymology of the word Synod, which only points to the “generic” meaning of the word; the presence of the historical events of Synods in the Churches (whether Eastern or Western) gives to the word of “Synodality” in the Catholic Church a “specific” meaning: the bishops walk with Jesus.
Synodality = The Importance of Synods
Synodality is particularly important in the Eastern Churches, where the Patriarch must discuss any important decision with the bishops. In fact, Synodality in the Eastern Churches is the Collegiality of the Western Churches. There is a saying in the Western Churches: “Synodus, Episcoporum est (Synod is the Bishops’ business)!
The “Synod of Bishops” that has been going on for the past four years has simply become “a walking together of a group of baptized people under the guidance of the Pope and his friends, with total disrespect of the “collegium Episcoporum,” which is the body of bishops formed by the Pope and the bishops.
The Orthodox Churches has also historically become several separate groups, and recently some of them have tried to meet together in communion, without success. But I don’t think that the Orthodox bishops, who were invited to observe our recent Synod of Bishops, would want to be united with our Catholic Church as it is today.
There are countless churches under the name of Protestants, the Anglican Communion is relatively closer to us Catholics, they are also led by bishops. They are now so divided that the Global Anglican Future Conference has disavowed the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury (because he recognized same-sex marriage), the latter recently resigned under the accusation of covering up sexual abuses. The future of the world Anglican Communion as a whole is in a unstable situation.
We Catholics are blessed to have preserved the structure of the Church as ordained by Jesus: the community of the faithful is led by the “Collegium” of the Apostles with Peter at its head, i.e. the community of the Bishops with the Pope at its head”.
This structure of the Church was clearly affirmed in the conclusions of the “Synod of Bishops 2024”, but in the actual proceedings of the “Synod”the collegiality of bishops was completely ignored.
It is definitely not enough to say that the Catholic Church is “a Church walking together”, we are:
The people of God walking with Christ,
led by the episcopal community headed by the Pope,
(especially through the teaching of the Synods of Bishops).
I make a heartfelt appeal to the bishops of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to consider seriously
How can we stop abusing the word Synodality?
No one should be allowed to “hijack” this synodality, which has such important significance in the Church’s tradition!