VATICAN CITY, 15 July 2026 — Cardinal Raymond Burke has raised serious concerns about the use of “synodality” in a recent consistory of cardinals, warning that the current methodology risks undermining open debate within the Sacred College and obscuring critical issues facing the Church.
Speaking to The College of Cardinals Report on June 28, following the June 26–27 consistory convened by Pope Leo, Cardinal Burke welcomed the renewed gathering of cardinals, something he noted had not occurred for many years under Pope Francis, and described the opportunity for greater fraternal exchange as a “very great fruit.”
But he also expressed concern that the structure of the meeting limited meaningful discussion as it had adopted a format modeled on “synodal” processes, with cardinals divided into small groups and guided by preset questions.
He argued that this approach prevented in-depth engagement and reduced feedback to consensus-based summaries, potentially excluding dissenting but important viewpoints from reaching the Pope.
“The reports are only reports of what every cardinal agreed upon,” Cardinal Burke said, adding that perspectives not shared by a majority may be omitted despite their significance.
He described a final session conducted in the traditional open-debate format as the most productive part of the gathering, although limited by time. The free discussion, in the presence of the Pope, was how past consistories of cardinals were undertaken.
Overall, he said the consistory was a “very controlled” process, including the apparent pre-selection of discussion leaders and limited opportunities for free intervention. In his view, this risked diminishing the role of cardinals as advisors to the Pope.
Turning to the growing use of “synodality” in the Church, Cardinal Burke firmly questioned its theological and historical grounding, describing it as a concept without clear definition or precedent in Church tradition. While synods have long existed as occasional consultative gatherings, he emphasized that they are not constitutive elements of the Church’s nature.
“There is no definition of synodality, there’s no history of it in the Church,” he said, expressing concern at the merging of established structures, such as consistories, with what he regards as an undefined concept.
Citing St. Paul’s teaching on the transmission of the faith — “I hand on to you what I first received” — Burke argued that continuity is essential and absent from current formulations of synodality.
“So we have to insist that this whole synodality business stop, and there be a very serious study done of the whole matter, because we’re talking about the very life of the Church, and we’re talking about the salvation of souls,” he said.
The cardinal also cautioned against reshaping established ecclesial structures around what he characterized as a contemporary and insufficiently examined idea. “The Church does not have paradigm shifts,” he said, rejecting language used in synodal and other discussions that suggested a radical change in direction for the Church’s teaching or mission.
The cardinal also warned that an excessive focus on contemporary concerns risks conforming the Church to secular ways of thinking, rather than addressing the modern world from within her own doctrinal and historical continuity.
“I’m confident our Lord will protect the Church,” he said, “but we have to do our part to say, ‘No, this concept of synodality, while it may have a good motive in the sense of wanting to address the faith of the contemporary time, is fundamentally flawed.”
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https://cardinalnews.substack.com/p/cardinal-burke-synodality-has-to