VATICAN CITY (CNS) ─ Pope Francis opened the second session of the Synod of Bishops defending his decision to give women and laymen votes at the assembly, saying it reflects the Second Vatican Council's teaching that a bishop exercises his ministry with and within the people of God.
"It is certainly not a matter of replacing one with the other, rallying to the cry: 'Now it is our turn!'" the pope said as the 368 synod members -- including what the Vatican described as 96 "non-bishops" -- began their work Oct. 2 in the Paul VI Audience Hall.
"We are being asked to work together symphonically, in a composition that unites all of us in the service of God's mercy, in accordance with the different ministries and charisms that the bishop is charged to acknowledge and promote," the pope told the members, seated at round tables with a mix of cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay men and women.
Pope Francis said he wanted to respond to a "storm of chattering" that had developed around his expansion of synod membership.
German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a synod member appointed by the pope, has said, "the canonical status of this assembly is not clear" since so many of the members are not, in fact, bishops.
For decades, however, the men's Union of Superiors General has been asked to elect 10 of their members -- almost always priests, but occasionally a religious brother -- to be full members of the synod. The real novelty Pope Francis introduced last year was to appoint women among the members, including by asking the women's International Union of Superiors General to elect full members like their male counterparts had been doing. A total of 57 women were named members of the synod's 2024 session.
Pope Francis insisted the composition of the assembly "expresses a way of exercising the episcopal ministry consistent with the living tradition of the church and with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. Never can a bishop, or any other Christian, think of himself 'without others.'"
"The presence in the assembly of the Synod of Bishops of members who are not bishops does not diminish the 'episcopal' dimension of the assembly," he said. "Still less does it place any limitation on, or derogate from, the authority proper to individual bishops and the College of Bishops."
Instead, the pope said, it highlights that bishops are to exercise their authority in a church that recognizes that it lives and grows from relationships between and among its members.
Quoting the ancient hymn "Veni Sancte Spiritus," Pope Francis prayed that the assembly would be "guided by the Holy Spirit, who 'bends the stubborn heart and will, melts the frozen, warms the chill and guides the steps that go astray'" as it strives "to help bring about a truly synodal church, a church in mission, capable of setting out, making herself present in today's geographical and existential peripheries, and seeking to enter into a relationship with everyone in Jesus Christ, our brother and Lord."
Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the synod, told members that if lay people were involved only at the beginning of the process it would "give the illusion of taking part in a decision-making process that however remains concentrated in the hands of a few."
If that were true, he said, "those who claim that the synodal process, once it has passed to the stage of the discernment of the bishops, has extinguished every prophetic instance of the People of God would be right!"
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