The Church isn’t a corporation, but the Synod acts like one

Charles Collins/Crux • July 9, 2025

The Vatican released its latest synod implementation document on Monday, bringing to mind a remark Pope Francis made a few years ago about how the Church is not a large multinational company run by managers carefully studying how best to sell their product.

“The Church,” Francis said to journalists on 13 November 2021, “does not build itself on the basis of its own project, it does not draw from itself the strength to move forward and it does not live by marketing strategies.”

Readers of the document issued Monday by the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops might be forgiven for thinking the Secretariat never got the memo.

Titled Pathways for the Implementation Phase of the Synod 2025–2028 and stretching to 24 typeset pages complete with full-colour graphics, pull quotes and other bells and whistles, the document describes itself as “a framework for consideration” offered to local Churches, “invit[ing] them to share their initiatives, contributing to the broader ecclesial discernment.”

Before all that—or alongside it—those following from home may be wondering: didn’t the three-year process end last year when the final Synod of Bishops meeting on synodality concluded?

That three-year process began in 2021 with diocesan meetings, followed by a continental phase ending in 2023. A three-week session was held in Rome in October 2023, followed by another in 2024, which was expected to conclude the process. It was then announced earlier this year that additional phases would continue through to 2028.

The General Secretariat released the Pathways document ahead of this new three-year extension, which was announced while Pope Francis was in hospital receiving treatment for what would prove to be his final illness.

The document states: “[T]he implementation phase is an opportunity to preserve that exchange of gifts which fosters the communion of local Churches within the one Church, manifesting its Catholicity while respecting legitimate diversity.”

“The creativity that inspires new ways of practising synodality and enhances the fruitfulness of mission springs from these differences,” it continues. “For this reason, the fruits of the experiences gained in different contexts need to be shared, nourishing dialogue between the Churches.”

“In the implementation phase,” it goes on, “a new process of dialogue therefore begins in each Church and between the Churches, based on the FD.” (Throughout the document, “FD” refers to the Final Document of the 2024 Synod of Bishops.)

Pope Francis was right. The Church is not a multinational corporation. But the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops appears to embrace some of the worst aspects of multinational office culture.

First, there is the fondness for unnecessary verbiage. The paragraph just quoted continues in the same opaque style, without ever actually stating anything concrete.

To be fair, Vatican-speak is notoriously verbose. “Curialese,” as insiders call it, is widely acknowledged—even by those who use it—as convoluted and exhausting. But the real affliction of synodality under the Secretariat is its proliferation of office-style meetings, now imposed on participating dioceses and ecclesial structures worldwide. The calendar is as follows:

• From now until December 2026: implementation activities in local Churches and groupings;

• First half of 2027: evaluation assemblies in dioceses and eparchies;

• Second half of 2027: evaluation assemblies in national and international episcopal conferences, Eastern hierarchies and other groupings;

• First four months of 2028: continental evaluation assemblies;

• October 2028: a final ecclesial assembly in the Vatican.

For comparison, the Fathers of the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325—exactly 1,700 years ago this year—took less than three months to define the Divinity of Christ and set the date for Easter. After four years of synodality, we still do not have a clear working definition of what synodality even is.

Asked by the Vatican’s own news service to define synodality, the Undersecretary of the Synod Secretariat, Sister Nathalie Becquart, referred to the Final Document, quoted Australian theologian Ormond Rush—who called synodality “the Second Vatican Council in a nutshell”—and pointed to the Synod’s tagline: “Communion, participation, mission.” This was not an impromptu exchange but a formal interview to highlight the Pathways document.

“We can say synodality is the way to understand the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council in this stage of the reception of the Council,” Becquart said.

“So,” she continued, “it’s nothing else but just continuing the reception of the Second Vatican Council. Because the council is not yet implemented everywhere, in a way. So that’s the way to understand it.”

Another way to understand it, she added, is through the Synod logo: “Communion, participation, mission.”

“And,” she continued, “we can say synodality is a way to help the Church to become more missionary and more participatory. So synodality is the way God is calling the Church to be today to better exercise our mission.”

One supposes that perhaps—eventually—a clear answer will emerge from the meetings taking place until 2028.

This brings us to another unfortunate parallel with multinational culture: “death by meetings.”

A recent U.S. survey found that 76 per cent of employees say they feel “drained” on days with multiple meetings, while 78 per cent say meetings prevent them from accomplishing their actual work.

Anecdotal evidence suggests meetings also provoke tension in businesses—and Churches—as participants sense an “expected outcome” even when none is stated. Meetings tend to be dominated by the few who enjoy them, who relish the chance to express opinions regardless of the agenda.

Most people don’t like meetings, even necessary ones, and many actively avoid them. Tactics include citing scheduling conflicts, claiming urgent work, or even feigning illness.

But Becquart told Vatican Media this next round of meetings will be hard to dodge.

“It’s very important if we want a synodal Church to implement synodality in Catholic schools, in Catholic universities, in youth ministry, in charities like Caritas. And they are already very involved in the Synod and the implementation, [including] religious communities that also have really taken up this call for synodality,” she said.

(Photo by ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images)