Word: synods
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...calling together the second Synod of Bishops, Pope Paul VI had hoped to gauge-and to control-the growing resentment against his absolute rule. Instead, after last week's discussions in the Vatican's Hall of Broken Heads, reformists out to curb the Pontiff's power were clearly in command. The 144 assembled prelates, in fact, had taken a groping first step toward something resembling parliamentary government in the Roman Catholic Church...
...synod should meet regularly and decide on its own agenda-instead of being called when the Pope sees fit to discuss an agenda that he puts before...
...French-speaking group of prelates, which included the synod's leading reformist, Leo-Jozef Cardinal Suenens of Belgium, made some of the most radical recommendations. It raised the possibility of bishops becoming involved in the election of the Pope; it also urged that the Roman Curia serve the church's bishops as well as the Pope...
...Latin and Italian groups-in which most Curia members and papal appointees gathered-kept closer to the status quo. They suggested that the synod have some voice in choosing its own agenda but continue to be convened only at the Pope's pleasure. "Synods should never be a way of 'getting the Pope,' " said John Cardinal Wright, former Bishop of Pittsburgh and now head of the Vatican's Congregation of the Clergy. He warned that yearly synods could become a prime example of Parkinson's Law and a burden...
Despite the criticism, the mood of the gathering was one of elation over what England's John Cardinal Heenan described as the "tolerance and charity" of the bishops. The prevailing sentiment of the synod was so clearly in favor of reforms that it seemed unlikely that the Pope could long avoid implementing them. But no one challenged the Pontiff's supreme authority, or his right to delay acting upon or even to ignore what the prelates recommended...