Cardinal Zen issues rebuke of canon lawyer’s defense of the Synod on Synodality
Answering the arguments of a canon lawyer, Cardinal Zen rejected the notion that a pope could use a global Synod as if it were a diocesan event to push through his personal goals.
Cardinal Joseph Zen
preaches a sermon during a mass at the Holy Cross Church on May 24, 2022 in
Hong Kong.Anthony Kwan/Getty Images
Michael
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Fri Feb 7, 2025 - 10:57 am EST
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(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Joseph Zen has responded to canonical questions about the Pope’s authority and the Synod of Bishops, rebuffing arguments which claimed that the Pope can treat the Synod on Synodality as a diocesan synod in which he could freely exert his personal will.
The principle of subsidiarity “is basically a principle of natural law, and in a large organization such as the Church, it is all the more necessary to respect this principle,” wrote the cardinal.
In a multi-lingual commentary posted on his personal blog, Zen weighed in on the relationship between the Pope and bishops in the Catholic Church regarding the Synod on Synodality, along with the participation of lay voters.
Published as a rebuttal of statements made by an individual publicly identified by Zen as a “fledgling canon lawyer,” the cardinal’s text drew from Canon Law and the Second Vatican Council’s text Lumen Gentium. It comes as debate about the Synod on Synodality is only intensifying, as cardinals engage in public discoursewith each other about the power of the Synod to enact change in practice and teaching of the Church.
Pope’s relationship with episcopate
Both the original commentary and Zen’s response text are based around questions pertaining to to the recently concluded Synod on Synodality and the Pope’s power relating to it. The synod saw bishops from around the world, and for the first time lay people also, join the Pope in compiling a text which the Pope officially “approved” upon its completion. That document contained numerous controversial aspects, including the claim that the question of women’s access to Holy Orders remains open, while infallible Catholic teaching is that such an eventuality can never take place.
According to Zen, the “fledgling canon lawyer” argued – regarding the Pope’s authority in using the synod to push certain ideas – that the “Church is like a diocese of the Pope. The Principle of Subsidiarity is not in force in this matter.” The unnamed canon lawyer’s argument appeared to be essentially that the Pope could use the synod to do whatever he wished.
In Zen’s forthright style, he opined that “even Cardinal [Gianfranco] Ghirlanda, S.J., would not dare to recognize this fledgling canon lawyer as his student.” Ghirlanda, the favored canonist of Pope Francis, has been mired in controversy over reports he might change rules governing a papal conclave, and his claim that “everything the popes have ever said or done in the history of the Church is a dogma or a law de jure divino [by divine right].”
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Drawing from Lumen Gentium, Zen highlighted that the Church teaches that “the pastoral office or the habitual and daily care of their sheep is entrusted to them [diocesan bishops] completely; nor are they to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs, for they exercise an authority that is proper to them, and are quite correctly called ‘prelates,’ heads of the people whom they govern.”
Far from being swept aside, the principle of subsidiarity – wrote Zen – “is basically a principle of natural law, and in a large organization such as the Church, it is all the more necessary to respect this principle.”
Direct papal involvement in a diocese should take place under judiciously assessed circumstances, he said, such as when as bishop is found to be “incompetent.”
The Hong Kong cardinal also warned against viewing the Pope as somehow infallible in every single statement, noting how even ex cathedra statements – i.e. those made by a pope by invoking his papal authority in specific terms – on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary still involved careful consultation with bishops and theologians. The requirements for and ex cathedrainfallible pronouncement are particular and stringent.
Though no specific examples were cited in the text, certain occasions in recent ecclesial history spring to mind as being particularly pertinent to Zen’s outlining of the papal-episcopal relationship.
Perhaps most notable is that of the summary removal of Bishop Joseph Strickland from his diocese in Tyler, Texas, in November 2023, after he was ordered to resign by the Pope in what was widely viewed as a highly controversial move due to Strickland’s popularity among American Catholics. Strickland later stated that he suspected the leading reasons for his removal were his refusal to implement restrictions on the traditional Mass and his outspoken defense of Catholic teaching.
But other examples also abound. By officially approving the Synod on Synodality’s final text last October, Pope Francis thus – by virtue of his own 2018 Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis communio – admitted the document into the “ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter.” Yet the document states that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open” which contradicts clear and unchanging teaching against this possibility.
In a unilateral move Francis appeared to put the Magisterium at odds with itself, introducing contradictory statements into the Church’s teaching.
For one who holds the view that the Pope is a kind of demi-God – as Zen appears to suggest the “fledgling canon lawyer” does – such an action would not be problematic. But for Catholics with a traditional understanding of the papacy, it remains particularly troublesome.
Lay voters at Synod
One of the most hotly contested issues about the Synod on Synodality has been the participation of lay voters at the 2023 and 2024 Rome-based meetings. This invocation was due to the direct intervention of Pope Francis, as announced via a press release in April 2023.
READ: Pope Francis to personally select lay men, women to form up to 25% of Synodal vote
The change affected Francis’ Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio, which stipulates the governance and workings of the Synod of Bishops. Announcing this change, the General Secretariat of the Synod stated that the synod would be run in line with “the Apostolic Constitution Episcopali Communio with some modifications and novelties, related to the composition of the Assembly and the type of participants, which are justified in the context of the synodal process, without, however, changing the episcopal nature of the Assembly.”
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Zen’s “fledgling canon lawyer” defended the participation of lay voters by opining that the Pope is “Bishop of the only diocese in the world,” and as such the synod – which is for the global Church – is in fact a “Diocesan Synod.”
For Zen, such an attestation fails to resolve the issue that lay voters in the Synod of Bishops violates Canon Law 346. “The Code of Canon Law in no way encourages ‘creativity,’” said Zen, “it demands strict compliance.”
Indeed, the presence of lay voters has been repeatedly raised as immensely problematic by prelates such as Cardinals Raymond Burke and Gerhard Müller, as well as Bishop Athanasius Schneider. Commenting on the issue in 2023, Schneider expressed doubt that such a change to the very nature of a synod could be brought about by mere press release, namely, in the way that the Vatican did so.
“Essential norms regarding the structure and procedures of the Synod of Bishops, including voting rights, must be duly promulgated by the Roman Pontiff or by an organ of the Holy See which has received a specific papal mandate for this purpose,” he wrote. “The Synod Secretariat statement does not mention a specific papal mandate.The fact that these essential norms were changed via a press release from the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops creates a perception of canonical arbitrariness.”
Zen is no stranger to analyzing the Synod on Synodality, having regularly written about its potential dangers and recently suggested that it could “overthrow” the established hierarchy of the Church for a style of democracy, which would undermine the teaching of faith and morals.
His latest foray into the debate surrounding the recent synod shows that, while the synod’s loyal proponents remain firmly attached to its ideology, so also is the Hong Kong cardinal’s fervor for the Catholic truth undaunted.
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- Cardinal Joseph Zen
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- Episcopal Collegiality
- Joseph Zen
- Lumen Gentium
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- Synod On Synodality
