Australian Archbishop Outlines Problems with Youth Synod and its Final Document

LifeSite News ^ | 11/5/18 | Lisa Bourne

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VATICAN CITY, November 5, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – There is a real danger in allowing synods to drive the Church’s doctrinal practice, an archbishop involved in the Vatican’s Synod on Youth has said.

There were numerous issues with how the recently-concluded synod was carried out, and its final document was not clear on Church teaching, Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney, Australia, said, noting the concept of “synodality” appeared in it as if out of nowhere.

The final document is too long and convoluted in parts, the archbishop said, and its preparation was rushed.

The archbishop also cited the call for the final document to be read in “complementarity” with the working document, along with translation difficulties and non-Italian speaking synod fathers being rushed to vote on something that had simply been read to them.

Additionally, Fisher said nearly all of the synod fathers felt as though they were “shut down” from speaking after they had given their synod interventions.

The Vatican Synod on Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment ran from October 3-28. It carried with it concern that it would be commandeered as a vehicle for normalization of homosexuality in the Church, similar to how the Synod on the Family played out regarding a weakening of Church teaching on marriage.

Both synods had a nod toward diverting authority from the papacy and the Vatican to episcopal conferences, with the call for “healthy decentralization” at the Synod on the Family. Inserted in the Youth Synod final document was “synodality,” a recurrent theme broached by Pope Francis.

The final document, and now the working document given the former’s unconventional statement that it should be read in light of the latter, are especially concerning, after Francis’s release of an Apostolic Constitution just prior to the Youth Synod aiming to augment the magisterial........