Pledge your prayers and fasting for protection of the Church during the Synod on Synodality HERE

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The newly appointed prefect of the Dicastery (formerly Congregation) for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Cardinal-designate Victor Manuel Fernández, has stated that the Synod on Synodality’s October 2023 meeting will not look for new “conclusions” on subjects like female ordination or clerical celibacy.

Fernández made his declaration in a social media post shared on Friday night, local time, just hours before he is due to receive his cardinal’s red hat in the September 30 consistory. With the consistory in the morning, the afternoon will see an ecumenical prayer vigil take place at the Vatican, with religious leaders joining the Pope in the event, which is aimed at praying for the Synod. Synod participants will then leave for a spiritual retreat in the evening. 

With this in mind, Fernández wrote “we can say that the Consistory that will create Cardinals is something secondary next to this fact [the Synod] that is much more relevant for the Church.”

The former archbishop of La Plata highlighted the ground-breaking role that lay people will have in the Synod, being able to not only participate but also vote. 

“Now, with their vote, several dozen women and lay men can change the course of a vote,” said Fernández. “Let’s think that sometimes something does not go ahead because of a difference of just a few votes.”

DDF prefect’s Synod predictions

Writing on the eve of the Synod, Fernández sought to dampen any ideas of possible change in the practice of the Church, but while also leaving room for “the Holy Spirit,” saying “we cannot know what course it [the Synod] will take.”

The Synod’s Instrumentum Laboris, which was released in June, highlights topics such as women’s diaconal “ordination,” married priests, and a need to “welcome” the “remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people.” It also promotes Amoris Laetitia’s argument that the divorced and “remarried” can be admitted to Holy Communion as a settled point of “magisterial and theological teaching.”

As LifeSite has reported, the 464 participants of the Synod will receive a copy of this text, along with all prior texts, and have the Synod’s many days spent in discussion about particular sections of the Instrumentum Laboris. 

READ: Here’s what will take place at the Synod on Synodality this October  

Fernández, arguing that the anyone looking to manipulate the Synod would find it difficult due to the hundreds of participants, added that “the problem is that this year’s Synod does not propose to deal with four or five issues discussed. That could happen next year but not now.”

Instead, the 2023 Synod meeting, according to Fernández, “is a more general but no less interesting reflection: what kind of Church do we want, what does today’s world need from us, what is the Church that the Lord wants today to enlighten the world in which we live.”

While the Synod has focused on “listening” and “dialogue” at all levels across the Church, and even outside of it, in recent days the Vatican has been attempting to warn journalists not to expect a similar amount of openness for the October Synod meetings. 

At a recent press briefing, Vatican officials shied away from affirming the enforcement of the pontifical secret on the discussions, promoting instead a spirit of “silence,” quoting the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini’s writings in doing so.

Fernández repeated such a theme. “[T]his will not be interesting for the press,” he said of the Synod. 

However interesting and useful it may seem to us, it will not be something that will fill the headlines of the media and the networks. To the world it may sound like a failure or an irrelevant meeting. 

It will not be so for us if we remain docile to the Holy Spirit. Pope Francis knows this and always says that it is not a matter of gaining space but of generating new processes that will bear fruit who knows when.

Downplays suggestions of change

Even though the Instrumentum Laboris does raise the question of the diaconate for women and married clergy, Cardinal-designate Fernández suggested that such topics might be raised but would not reach a conclusion.

“While we must remain open to what God wants to do, I do not think that this month we will discuss issues such as celibacy, the ordination of women or things like that,” he said, “because each of these issues would require a lot of prior study, regional discussions, and then for each of these issues would require at least a whole Synod or two.” 

“So, with respect to these much debated issues, there could only be a request to study them, but no conclusions,” added Fernández, hinting at the future. 

READ: What should Catholics expect regarding the Synod on Synodality’s final document?

Indeed, as LifeSite has reported, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications also downplayed any expectations of large decisions from the 2023 Synod meeting, since such kinds of results would be seen in the 2024 Synod of Bishops that will take place in Rome next October and serve as the conclusion to the Synod on Synodality.  

Indeed, the text that will be compiled from this October’s Synod meetings will go on to serve as the basis for the continuation of the process, leading up to the 2024 gathering in Rome. 

However, such statements might not be enough for a number of the participants, with growing calls from both clerical and lay voting members of the Synod for an overturning of Catholic doctrine on points that the Synod will discuss.

Pledge your prayers and fasting for protection of the Church during the Synod on Synodality HERE