“The way God expects the Church to go in the third millennium”. Synodality in the Catholic Church today: theological aspects and challenges

• Published in: Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svi͡a︡to-Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta. I, Bogoslovie, filosofii͡a Vol. 101; no. 101; pp. 26 - 41
• Main Author: Maksimov, Alexey
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: St. Tikhon's Orthodox University 01.12.2022
• Subjects: catholic church; collegiality; communion; ecclesiology; mission; people of god; pope francis; synod; synodality; theology; католическая церковь; коллегиальность; миссия; народ божий; общение; папа франциск; синод; синодальность; теология; экклезиология
• ISSN: 1991-640X; 1991-640X; 2409-4692
• DOI: 10.15382/sturI2022101.26-41

The article is devoted to the consideration of such a phenomenon in theology and ecclesiology of the modern Catholic Church as synodality. In October 2021, the first phase of the XVI General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church dedicated to this topic was opened. The neologism “synodality” has been updated in Catholic theology since the pontificate of Pope Francis. Synodality is becoming one of the priority terms not only of the papal Magisterium, but also of that extensive theological reflection, which is trying not only to provide a fairly stable place for the new concept in modern Catholic ecclesiology, but also to find an adequate and relevant definition and argumentation for it. This is not about the accidental characteristics of synodal ecclesiology, but about attempts to develop an authentic theology of synodality, which, in its intuitions, seeks to embrace such a well-known and popular ecclesiological category of the Orthodox East as «sobornost’». Synodality, as the author tries to illustrate, goes far beyond hierarchical structures, representing in fact a special manner of existence and response (modus vivendi et operandi) of the Church as the People of God, a kind of her entelechy, rather than a purely operational method. Encompassing the entire spectrum of the relationship between the social and mystical dimensions of the Church, its institutional and charismatic character, its being ad intra and its missionary outcome ad extra, modern Catholic ecclesiology strives to give the theme of synodality not a functional character, but a priority, essential dimension of the Church and her mission in this the world.