Cardinal Brandmüller calls for restoring the role of regional synods

Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, has raised concerns about the direction bishops' conferences have taken over the past centuries. In an article published on the blog of the Vatican journalist Sandro Magister, Brandmüller writes that since the late 19th century, especially in Europe, these conferences have adopted forms and procedures copied from political models. That, he writes, is an expression of a progressive secularization in the understanding of the Church.

Against that political model, Brandmüller argues that the synods of the particular Churches should recover their original importance, because they follow hierarchical structures that are genuinely ecclesial. Because bishops' conferences match political borders, he says, they have gradually displaced the role synods should play in the life of the Church.

Brandmüller's article comes at a time when synodality is at the center of much of the Church's internal debate. His proposal is to revive the role of synods as the proper settings for bishops to meet and make decisions, apart from the administrative logic that, in his view, now runs through the conferences. Church structures, he writes, should remain anchored in their theological foundations and not give way to pressure from the contemporary political environment.