Synod deliberates on doctrinal authority of bishops' conferences

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Recognizing the doctrinal authority of bishops' conferences does not mean allowing them to reject the teaching authority of the pope, but rather to apply church teaching to their unique context, said the head of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops.

"Each episcopal conference needs to have a certain authority in terms of saying, 'How are we going to understand this (doctrine) in the concrete reality in which we are living?'" Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, said during an Oct. 23 briefing on the Synod of Bishops.

The authority of national bishops' conferences has been a central topic in synod discussions on the decentralization of decision-making in the church.

The working document for the synod stated that bishops' conferences had not yet realized the full capacities envisioned for them by the Second Vatican Council, including "genuine doctrinal authority."

Cardinal Prevost said synod members noticed that the Spanish and Italian translations of the working document mention developing "some kind of doctrinal authority" for bishops' conferences rather than a more absolute form of doctrinal authority as could be insinuated from the English version, creating confusion among English-speaking synod discussion groups.

The cardinal said decentralization and allowing local churches to have a greater role in decision-making, recurring themes of the synod, would not negate church teaching on the primacy of the pope.

"The whole understanding of synodality is not that all of a sudden there is going to be a fully democratic, assembly-style way of exercising authority in the church," he said. "The primacy of Peter and of the successors of Peter, the bishop of Rome, of the pope, is something which enables the church to continue to live communion in a very concrete way."

"Synodality can have a great impact on how we are living in the church, but it certainly takes nothing away from what we would call the primacy" of the pope, said the cardinal.

Father Gilles Routhier, a theological expert at the synod from Canada, addressed concerns that giving bishops' conferences more doctrinal authority could lead to "disorder" due to their proposing potentially conflicting dogmas. He clarified that bishops' conferences cannot possess "an absolute authority to propose new dogmas" but must develop "an authority that understands limits" and remains in communion with the universal church.

"We can be afraid to entrust a doctrinal authority to episcopal conferences insofar as we fear a fragmentation of the church," he said. However, he added that the aim of the synod is to enable bishops' conferences to teach doctrine "so that this common faith does not simply remain at the abstract level, but responds to the questions of its people in its territories when they encounter contemporary challenges."

Following the synod, the church must better delineate the competencies of bishops' conferences to support "an authentic teaching of the bishops that can meet the concerns, questions and challenges" of the faithful, Father Routhier said.