Synodality as a Joint Elaboration of Decisions: Breaking the Deadlock of the votum tantum consultivum

Alphone Borras

doi:10.46553/teo.58.135.2021.p93-111

Authors

Alphone Borras Universidad Católica de Lovaina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46553/teo.58.135.2021.p93-111

Keywords:

Ecclesiology, Synodality, Participation, Consultation, Deliberation, Consultative vote, Decision Making / Decision taking, Diocesan Synod, Pastoral Counsel, Presbyteral Counsel

Abstract

The Church is synodal, which implies, from a participatory ecclesiology, the co-re- sponsibility of all the faithful. In this perspective, the qualification of the participatory bodies proposed by the Code of Canon Law as «only consultative» is problem- atic for a modern democratic sensibility. After evoking the anchoring of synodality in the mystery of the Church, the author recalls that this concept alludes both to a style, a habitus, and to processes and institutions that involve the protagonism of all the faithful as well as the singular role of the pastoral ministry. From there he concludes on the inadequacy of the juridical binomial "consultative-deliberative" to highlight both the ecclesiological weight of the common opinion and the equally ecclesiological relevance of the joint elaboration of decisions, in ecclesia.

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Author Biography

Alphone Borras, Universidad Católica de Lovaina

El autor es profesor emérito de la Facultad de Derecho Canónico de la Universidad Católica de Lovaina.

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