Nearly three months have passed since the publication of the synod’s final report from Study Group 9, titled “Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues.”[1] Though receiving much press due to its discussion of homosexuality, the document in fact proposes something more fundamental to the Church’s life: “a change of paradigm in the way the Church addresses the most difficult doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical questions.”[2]

Reactions were hot. For Crisis, the paradigm shift marks an “End of Catholic Moral Doctrine.”[3] The National Catholic Register called the document a “scandalous debacle,” arguing that it challenges the “essential dogmatic and hierarchical character” of the Church.[4] While such responses express a not uncommon critique of Rome (“the study groups, after all, were a creation of Francis”),[5] the document has perplexed more than the usual critics. Even if a welcome surprise for many, the document seems to have come out of left field — a left field from Rome!

What, then, is the paradigm shift? According to the study group:

“When we speak today of a paradigm shift, we are rediscovering the biblical conception of the truth of God who reveals himself in history and who, through a story of divine love, leads us to live this story ever more fully, fostering an ongoing process of shared learning within the Christian community” (8).

If a former paradigm reduced the faith to a set of immutable “principles and statements, of norms and rules, regardless of the experience of individuals and communities,” the new paradigm calls for ongoing discernment precisely in light of the lived experience of the People of God. Emerging questions, then, cannot simply be resolved by appealing to past formulations but call for an “unguarded openness to what the Spirit says to the Churches today” (8).

As challenging as it may be, Study Group 9’s document is a fruit of the Second Vatican Council’s own ecclesiological renewal: the People of God, under the guidance of the Spirit, journey together in history toward the fullness of the truth. This teaching is founded on two theological pillars — the pneumatological recovery of the sensus fidelium and the eschatological orientation of the Church’s faith. Read in this light, the paradigm shift appears not as an “alternative way to make doctrine,” as the Register warns, but an expression of the very way the Spirit leads the Church into all truth.

The Sensus Fidelium

First, the paradigm shift flows from the Council’s pneumatological foundation of the Church. The Spirit makes the Church, and it is the Spirit who guides the Church — importantly, the whole Church — into all truth. Lumen gentium thereby identifies the prophetic role of the entire People of God, bishops and laity alike. By the sensus fidelium, or sense of the faithful, the Spirit enables the People of God to recognize and discern the truth of faith throughout the ages.

In 2014, the International Theological Commission (ITC) offered important insights regarding the significance of the sensus fidelium for the Church’s discernment of faith. First, because the Spirit works in all the faithful, the Magisterium must be attentive to the sensus fidelium. Indeed, when the majority of the faithful rejects a decision of the Magisterium, this could indicate the lack of “consideration” of the faithful on the part of the Magisterium.[6]

A second insight is the observation that, from the beginning of the Church, all the faithful have played an “active role” in the development of doctrine. The ITC considers cases where the Magisterium’s judgment was “already clarified by the faithful intuition of lay people,” like on religious liberty.[7] Recently, Pope Leo acknowledged the Magisterium’s own development in its condemnation of slavery. The truth of the Gospel, says Leo, “grows over time within the concrete interweaving of lives, communities and cultures” (MH 25).[8] Indeed, Leo identifies the Church’s social doctrine as “a common, collective and even multidisciplinary pursuit of truth.”[9] Rather than reducing doctrine to the insights of the Magisterium, then, Leo understands the Church’s faith to be a dynamic and collaborative discernment of the whole Church.

If the sensus fidelium indicates that the Spirit guides the entire People of God into truth, synodality implements this concretely in the life of the Church. By listening to the sensus fidelium — to the experiences of faith of the People of God — the Church ultimately listens to “what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Rev 2:7).

Synodality: The Spirit Speaks, the Church Listens

Fundamentally, synodality is an ecclesiological reality — the very “modus vivendi et operandi of the Church.” It is no mere fad but, as Francis says, “an expression of the Church’s nature, her form, style and mission.”[10] Synodality follows the Council’s renewed pneumatological foundation of the Church. The Spirit continues to speak to and through the People of God.

Because the Spirit continues to speak, the Church must listen. The Final Document of the 2024 synod considers many “places where God speaks” — Scripture, Tradition, creation, the cry of the poor, conscience. Importantly, the Magisterium is also tasked with listening. The Magisterium is thereby conceived as a participant in the Church’s communal discernment. Indeed, for Francis, synodality is the very “interpretive framework” for understanding the Magisterium.[11] This discernment indeed “culminates in listening to the Bishop of Rome,” notes Francis, but precisely as the “supreme witness to the fides totius Ecclesiae.”

When it comes to emerging issues, then, there is the need to discern what the Spirit is saying today. Merely reiterating past doctrines is not always sufficient. “What is at stake,” says the study group, “is the overcoming of the theoretical model that derives praxis from a ‘pre-packaged’ doctrine” (26). Instead, the paradigm shift calls for an approach that focuses “on the account of the lived experience of the People of God,” especially those “on the existential, social, and cultural ‘peripheries.’” While these experiences must always be “interpreted ecclesially in light of Revelation” and ultimately judged by the Church’s teaching authority, the People of God remain the locus where the Spirit continues to speak today.

For those like the editors at the Register, the need to go beyond “pre-packaged doctrine” can be disconcerting, suggesting the possibility of inadequacy — and impending change — of certain doctrines. However, the worry over change forgets another crucial thread of the conciliar teaching: the eschatological orientation of the Church. Indeed, if the pneumatological retrieval of the sensus fidelium is one bookend for the paradigm shift, the eschatological is the other.

Pilgrim Church: Learning Along the Way

More than a postscript to theology, eschatology characterizes the entirety of Christian faith, as it indicates God’s ultimate purposes for creation. By reviving the eschatological orientation, the Second Vatican Council reoriented the Church from present perfection to future fulfillment. Thus, the Church is pilgrim as she unfolds in history. Importantly, this goes for the Church’s understanding of faith, too.

The Church, says the Council, is still moving “toward the fullness of divine truth” (Dei Verbum 8). In this way, the truth is not a pre-packaged item but a goal toward which the Church advances. The eschatological orientation is a reminder that, rather than the Church having the truth, the truth has it. Indeed, truth is “not a possession to be monopolized,” as Leo says, but a “gift to be shared.” It is therefore not a matter of imposition from above but a complementary exchange oriented “toward an ever fuller communion” (MH 26).

The Church as pilgrim is open to newness, for it considers itself to be an unfinished reality. The pilgrim Church, then, isn’t afraid of new questions. As the Council admits, the Church “does not always have a ready answer to every question” (Gaudium et spes 33). As pilgrim, the Church entrusts itself to the Spirit, the true protagonist of the Church. A Church that does not remember itself as pilgrim “keeps the Holy Spirit in a cage,” as Francis put it.

The eschatological orientation reminds us that the Church does not have everything sorted out in advance. Rather than fearing change, then, the Church can expect it. Indeed, history witnesses to changes in church teaching. The development from 19th-century papal teaching to Vatican II’s embrace of religious liberty is hard to construe as something other than real change, even reversal.[12] Recent papal statements on the death penalty and just war theory represent real adjustments in doctrine. Leo even acknowledged the Church’s past errors on slavery. Of course, none of these indicate changes in dogma. But then again, neither do the kinds of changes that many of the synodality skeptics fear. The teaching on sexual ethics may be well ingrained in 20th-century Vatican documents — but so was the teaching on religious liberty in the 19th century.

Paradigm Shift: Back to Acts 15

Christ guarantees that the Spirit will lead the Church into all truth — but we do not always know how or when or where. The Spirit blows where the Spirit wills, and this usually does not happen in any dramatic way. When new questions appear, the Church does not become idle and await the Spirit’s intervention. Instead, the Spirit empowers the Church and her official teachers — the pope and bishops — to participate in the Spirit’s very leading of the Church into all truth.

Here the apostolic Church is the paradigm. Though Peter indeed received a vision, the apostolic decision on the Gentile question was resolved through dialogue, debate, and discernment. We should not expect this paradigm to be any different today: the Spirit leads the Church into truth — not through divine intervention — but through genuinely human modes of learning. This is not a matter of Spirit or human agency but both/and. In this way, the apostolic Church was able to determine that its decision “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28).

Indeed, Study Group 9’s document identifies Acts 10–15 as the very biblical image for its proposed paradigm. When the apostolic Church encountered its own “emerging question” of Gentile inclusion, the solution was not a matter of applying a pre-packaged doctrine. Instead, under the guidance of the Spirit, the lived experiences of the Apostles and Gentile believers were read in light of Christ and the Scriptures. This was done collectively, in communal discernment — and only then did Peter stand and judge the matter for the Council.

Now, the Magisterium has an essential, Christ-appointed role. The pope and bishops are shepherds and official teachers of the Church. Like Peter and the Apostles in Acts, so the pope and bishops ultimately judge on behalf of the whole Church. This is not in question. Rather, the issue is: how are these shepherds enabled to teach, in the first place? Is it by mechanical, even “magical,” intervention of the Spirit — or is it through a discerning and dynamic, collaborative and communal endeavor that the Church’s shepherds must lead, foster, and take part in? The conciliar teaching on the sensus fidelium, its implementation in synodality, the teachings of Francis and Leo — and indeed, the very example in the Acts of the Apostles — indicate the latter.

Notes

[1] Study Group 9, Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues: Final Report (Vatican City: General Secretariat of the Synod, 2026), 7, https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/process/implementation/10workinggroups/final-reports/sg9/SG-9_Final-Report.pdf.

[2] Antonella Palermo, “Synod Releases Final Reports on Selection of Bishops, Emerging Issues,” Vatican News, May 7, 2026, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2026-05/synod-final-reports-groups-7-9-episcopacy-emerging-issues.html.

[3] Monica Miller, “Paradigm Shifts and the End of Catholic Moral Doctrine,” Crisis Magazine, June 5, 2026, https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/paradigm-shifts-and-the-end-of-catholic-moral-doctrine.

[4] The Editors, “Lessons from the ‘Synod Study Group 9’ Debacle,” National Catholic Register, May 19, 2026, https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/lessons-from-the-synod-study-group-9-debacle.

[5] Ibid.

[6] International Theological Commission, Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church. 2014. Nos. 74 and 123. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html

[7] Ibid., nos. 72 and 73.

[8] Leo, Magnifica Humanitas. 15 May 2026. Hereafter cited in the text as MH. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

[9] Leo, “Address to Members of the ‘Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice’ Foundation.” 17 May 2025. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/may/documents/20250517-centesimus-annus-pro-pontifice.html

[10] Francis, “To the Faithful of the Diocese of Rome,” 18 September 2021. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/september/documents/20210918-fedeli-diocesiroma.html

[11] Francis, “Address on the Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops,” 2015. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papa-francesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html

[12] Indeed, the minority opposition at the Council argued against the teaching precisely on these grounds — that it represents change of traditional teaching. See John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (Harvard University Press, 2010).