Three axes of Francis’s teaching
Three interconnected axes can be identified throughout the pontificate of Francis. The first, ecclesiological, is shaped by Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium (2013), the Address for the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops (2015), and the Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio (2018). This axis deepens in the ecclesiology of the People of God and finds a solid systematization in the document of the International Theological Commission on Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church (2018). Its fullest expression is reached in the Synod on Synodality (2021–2028), from which emerges the definition of the Church as constitutively synodal, assumed by Francis as part of his ordinary magisterium in the Final Document (2024).
The second axis, social, is composed of Laudato Si’ (2015), Querida Amazonia (2019), Fratelli Tutti (2020), and Laudate Deum (2023). These texts push for an integral conversion that encompasses the ecological (the cry of the earth), the social (the cry of the poor), and the political (authoritarianisms and populisms). It emphasizes a valorization of peoples and their cultures as places of authentic revelation of God. In this axis, the option for the poor acquires a “structural character for the whole Church,” even orienting a pastoral geopolitics. The third axis of a socio-religious nature includes the Document on Human Fraternity (2019) and chapter VIII of Fratelli Tutti, where an openness to interreligious dialogue is projected. Together, the three axes delineate a Church that not only evangelizes but also allows itself to be evangelized; that not only listens, but learns from what is heard, and in the horizon of a global and culturally polycentric Church.
In the context of a matured reception of the Council
Francis assumed Vatican II as a Council of reform. On November 9, 2013 (in Santa Marta), he spoke of an Ecclesia semper reformanda, in continuity with John XXIII (aggiornamento) and Paul VI (renovatio ecclesiae). A few days later, he expressed his way of receiving the Council in Evangelii Gaudium, his programmatic text. From the beginning, he showed his Latin American roots, especially in the theology of the People of God and in the reception of the General Conferences of the Latin American Episcopate. An example is the notion of pastoral conversion, taken from the Conference of Santo Domingo (1992), which means a revision of “personal and community praxis, relationships of equality and authority, and structures and dynamisms” (SD 30); and from Aparecida (2007), which called for “spiritual, pastoral and institutional reforms” (Ap 367), especially so that “the laity participate in the discernment, decision-making, planning and execution” (Ap 371) of the ecclesial mission. Years later, the Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod on Synodality will take up the task promoted by Francis: “To journey together as the People of God requires that we recognize the need for ongoing individual and communal conversion. On the institutional and pastoral level, this conversion translates into an equally permanent reform of the Church, its structures and its style, following in the footsteps of the impulse to continuous aggiornamento, a precious legacy left to us by the Second Vatican Council” (DEC 101).
From a “new” to a “further” phase in the reception of Vatican II
At the beginning of his pontificate, Francis affirmed that “to be Church is to be People of God” (EG 114), opening the way to deepen the hermeneutic proposed by the Council Fathers in the sequence of the chapters of Lumen Gentium: Mystery of the Church (ch. 1), People of God (ch. 2), and Hierarchy (ch. 3). This order overcame a pyramidal vision of three distinct ecclesial subjects —Pope, bishops, and People of God— to affirm, instead, an organic vision of the Church as a single People, where “the Pastors and the other faithful are bound to one another by reciprocal necessity” (LG 32). Francis, son of the Council, assumes this point of departure and opens a new phase in its reception. His first Urbi et Orbi blessing, on March 13, 2013, marks this beginning. He said: “We begin this journey: Bishop and people.” These words became his first gesture in St. Peter’s Square: “before the Bishop blesses the people, I ask you to pray that the Lord will bless me.” Paradoxically, his pontificate begins by asking for the blessing of the People of God and concludes by giving it to that same People of God, gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
Along the pontificate, the search for ways for “bishops and people” to walk together leads to a “further” phase in the reception of the Council, which deepens and matures the “new phase” inaugurated in 2013. In this process, the figure of a constitutively synodal Church emerges, where all its members enjoy equal baptismal dignity. In this context of the ecclesiology of the People of God (Final Document of the XVI General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 31), Francis understands and affirms that “the path of synodality is the path that God expects from the Church of the third millennium” (Speech for the 50th anniversary of the Synod of Bishops, 2015), and explains to the Diocese of Rome that “the theme of synodality is not the chapter of a treatise on ecclesiology, and even less a fashion, it is not a slogan or a new term to be used and instrumentalized in our meetings. Synodality expresses the nature of the Church, its form, its style, and its mission” (September 18, 2021). Today, the Synod on Synodality has reached an understanding that synodality, lived among bishops and other faithful, “implies coming together in assembly at the different levels of ecclesial life, mutual listening, dialogue, communal discernment, reaching consensus as an expression of the presence of Christ in the Spirit, and decision-making in differentiated co-responsibility. In this line, we understand better what it means that synodality is a constitutive dimension of the Church” (Final Document 28).
Conclusion
This “further” phase in the reception of the Council represents a kairos, a time that is shaping a new figure of the Church. We are witnessing its beginning, but the real challenge will be to consolidate it. The synodalization of the whole Church cannot be reduced to a simple aggiornamento; it will require a new creation that advances even more the conciliar maturation accomplished by Pope Francis.
Image: Vatican Media.
RafaelLuciani. Venezuelan layman, Doctor of Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at the Dominican Institute of Aquinas in the United States. He is a Professor Ordinarius at the Jesuit`s Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, and has taught in several Universities in Latin America and North America. He currently teaches Ecclesiology, Latin American Theology, and the Second Vatican Council. He is an expert for CELAM (Latin American Episcopal Council) and a member of the theological advisory group to the presidency of CLAR (Latin American Confederation of Religious). He is co-coordinator of the intercontinental group of theologians and canonists Peter & Paul Seminar, serves as a member of the theological commission of the General Secretariat of the Synod for the synodal process (2021-2028) and was a Peritus at the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality.
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