Canonists Warn Synod’s Canon Law Proposals Blur Lines of Church Authority
Canon lawyers criticized a Synod on Synodality commission’s final report, arguing that some proposed canon-law changes depart from Catholic doctrine and the Second Vatican Council. The report proposes amending 34 canons, including rules on lay roles in Church offices and ministries, councils, bishops’ conferences, and participatory bodies. A disputed proposal would add a reference to the *sensus fidelium*—the faithful’s shared sense of the faith—to canon 749 on papal infallibility. The commission’s recommendations are nonbinding and would need Pope Leo XIV’s approval to take effect.
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A Synod on Synodality commission has proposed amendments to 34 canons, including rules on lay participation, Church governance and the sensus fidelium. Canonists quoted in the report disagree over whether the proposals would undermine the relationship between ordained ministry and governance; the report is advisory and changes would require Pope Leo XIV’s approval and formal promulgation.
Published by the General Secretariat of the Synod on Sept. 30, the commission’s report considers how ideas from the 2021–2024 Synod on Synodality could be reflected in canon law. Its proposals address the eligibility of laypeople for Church offices and responsibilities, councils and bishops’ conferences, and participatory structures. The commission also called for a longer-term, comprehensive revision of the Latin and Eastern codes of canon law.
One proposed change would add language about the sensus fidelium—the faithful’s shared sense of the faith—to the canon on papal infallibility. The suggested text draws on Lumen Gentium and describes the whole body of the faithful, from bishops to laypeople, as unable to err in matters of faith when it demonstrates universal consent.
Other proposals would reinforce qualified laypeople’s ability to hold Church offices and take on ministries, responsibilities and governance roles. The report also suggests changes to councils and episcopal conferences, including removing the Holy See’s role in delegating a layperson to assist at marriages.
Canonist David Long said the sensus fidelium proposal reflects Vatican II’s teaching but belongs more appropriately in canon 750, which concerns the Church’s shared profession of faith, rather than canon 749 on who can teach infallibly. He also argued that the text should clarify that the faithful exercise this sense in communion with and under the guidance of the Church’s teaching authority, not as a matter of majority opinion.
Father Gerald Murray argued that the proposals would extend the power of governance to Catholics who are not ordained, which he described as a departure from the Church’s teaching on the threefold office of priest, prophet and king. Father Pius Pietrzyk likewise objected that the proposals separate governance from holy orders and said that allowing a tribunal to consist entirely of lay judges would conflict with the relationship between the two described in Lumen Gentium.
Long drew a distinction between those concerns and existing practice: canon law already permits lay judges, he said, so their participation does not by itself break with doctrine. His concern was that the proposed authority could be too broad if its limits were not specified.
Long welcomed proposals to make diocesan pastoral councils mandatory and to require presbyteral councils’ consent for certain significant decisions by bishops. He noted that requiring consent, for example in parish restructuring, would go beyond consultation and said the rules would need to address what happens if agreement cannot be reached.
The Synod Secretariat characterized the report as a working, advisory document, not binding law. Any changes would need papal approval and formal promulgation; Pietrzyk said the report itself has no legal authority.
The relationship between ecclesial participation and hierarchical authority in the Church
Ecclesial participation and hierarchical authority are not rival principles in the Church. They belong together: all the faithful share responsibility for the Church’s life and mission, while authority is exercised through distinct ministries entrusted by Christ, especially the ministry of the Pope and bishops. Synodality gives practical expression to this relationship: the Church journeys and discerns together, without treating authority as a mere delegation from the people or reducing Church decisions to majority rule.
Participation begins with the gifts and vocation of the baptized. The faithful are called to serve one another and contribute to the Church’s mission according to their particular gifts; this is the basis of ecclesial co-responsibility. But co-responsibility does not mean that everyone has the same role or the same authority. Participation is real, while the forms of responsibility differ.
This means that listening to the faithful is not merely a courtesy. The People of God share in Christ’s prophetic office, and their experience and faith can help the bishops discern what the Spirit is saying to the Church. The Synod of Bishops therefore urges pastors to listen broadly, including to people who do not hold prominent positions.
Hierarchical authority is not simply power supplied by a community, nor is it meant to function as personal domination. The International Theological Commission describes the authority of pastors as a particular gift of the Spirit for building up the whole Church, and says it is not a representative function delegated by the people.
That authority must nevertheless be exercised within communion and for the Church’s mission. Pope Benedict XVI explains that the Church’s hierarchy is sacramental in origin: ordained ministers govern as servants of Christ, bound to obedience to him and to communion with the other members of the ordained ministry.
Synodal participation is not a transfer of governing authority to an assembly or a contest between competing interests. Consultation of the faithful does not make the Church a democracy governed by majority vote; it is a process of shared discernment within a hierarchically structured community. The bishops are to listen to the People of God, then exercise their own pastoral and teaching responsibility.
The same distinction applies in parish and diocesan bodies. Such bodies provide real cooperation, drawing on the knowledge and competence of the faithful. But the pastor or bishop is not simply an executor of majority decisions; participation and pastoral authority have different, complementary functions.
Thus, participation without authority risks losing the Church’s ordered unity, while authority exercised without listening risks failing to recognize the gifts and testimony of the faithful. The proper relationship is neither “the people rule” nor “the people merely comply,” but differentiated participation and pastoral authority exercised in communion for the Church’s mission.