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| The Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies |
On 24 September 2025, the General Secretariat of the Synod announced that the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies will take place in the Vatican from 24 to 26 October 2025. The programme will include moments of formation and exchange among participants, as well as liturgical events, culminating in the celebration of Holy Mass on Sunday, 26 October, presided over by 'Pope' Leo XIV.
Among the 25 scheduled
workshops, one immediately caught my attention: a session on polarity
management. At first, I assumed it was merely a newly coined modernist term,
but I was mistaken. I discovered that not only is it a genuine discipline, but
it is also a highly effective instrument in the hands of modernists.
In this article, I will
examine this concept and discuss how it is being used to advance the ongoing
phase of the post-conciliar revolution.
How to deal with
Unsolvable Problems
In
our daily lives, we often encounter many trials and tribulations. These can be
divided into two main groups:
Problems:
ordinary difficulties that can be addressed and solved.
Polarities
(or paradoxes): inherently insoluble difficulties that cannot be solved, but
only managed. They consist of opposing, interdependent, and coexisting ideas;
in other words, one cannot function or exist without the other.
Polarity Management [1] is an organisational development model created to identify and address opposing forces. It requires:
1. Recognising
the value of both poles and respecting resistance to one-sided solutions.
2. Adopting new ways of thinking, such as moving from:
- Rigidity to flexibility
- Autocracy to participation
- Centralisation to decentralisation
3. Accepting
the dialectical tension between the two extremes as a natural attribute of the
system.
4. Listening
to the concerns of those who resist change and understanding their perspective.
5. Adopting
a both/and mentality instead of an either/or approach.
The proponents of this theory argue that this mindset brings several benefits, including:
- Rigidity to flexibility
- Autocracy to participation
- Centralisation to decentralisation
Synodal Revolution and Polarity Management
The synodal documents themselves reveal how this model has been used to advance their agenda.
These principles may be summarised as follows:
- The whole Church and the local Church;
- The Church as the People of God, as the Body of Christ and as the Temple of the Spirit;
- The participation of all and the authority of some;
- Synodality, collegiality, and primacy;
- The common priesthood and the ministerial priesthood;'
- Ministry (ordained and instituted ministries) and participation in the mission by virtue of baptismal vocation without a ministerial form.
2.
Implementation of the FD requires addressing and discerning these dualities as
they arise in the circumstances in which each local Church exists.[3]
3.
The path to advance is not to seek an impossible arrangement that eliminates
dualisms in favour of one of the sides.[4]
4. The entire synodal exercise
was one of active participation at diverse levels. For this process to
continue, a change of mindset and a renewal of existing structures are needed.[5]
5. A synodal Church first
of all needs to deal with the many conflicts that emerge from encountering
diversity. Therefore, a synodal spirituality can only be one that welcomes
differences.[6]
Critical Analysis and Commentaries
1. Introducing novelties
under the guise of reform:
Polarity management,
though well-established in the corporate world, is alien to Sacred Theology.
The importation of such concepts into the Church creates ambiguities and
undermines the deposit of faith, ultimately distorting rather than enriching
ecclesial life.
2. Heresy and orthodoxy
cannot coexist:
The Church is not built
on dialectical polarities, but on divine revelation. Catholicism is essentially
an either/or religion. Heresy is not treated as a necessary counterpart to
orthodoxy but as a deadly disease to be condemned. Treating heresy as a
necessary dialectical counterpart to orthodoxy undermines the Church’s mission.
3. A change of mindset leads to a change of faith:
The current reform process insists on the need for a 'new way of thinking' in order to advance reform. However, the Catholic faith
does not permit such innovation. The First Vatican Council solemnly declared: 'The
meaning of the sacred dogmas, once declared by Holy Mother Church, must always
be preserved, and this meaning must never be abandoned under the pretext or in
the name of a deeper understanding'.[7]
4. Encountering Diversity:
The Vatican assembly demands that all differences be welcomed as if they were
gifts of the Spirit. But not all diversity is good, desirable, or compatible
with revealed truth. The Church has always distinguished between legitimate
diversity—such as liturgical rites within the one true faith—and destructive
plurality, which undermines apostolic tradition. Elevating diversity as an
absolute sanctifies division. A Church that glories indiscriminately in
differences risks dissolving the very unity of the Mystical Body of Christ.
*****
Our Lord founded His Church to carry forward His work of redemption until the end of time. Her mission is not to navigate tensions or celebrate diversity, but to proclaim divine certainties with the unwavering voice of Christ: 'Let your speech be yea, yea: no, no.'[8] The Mystical Body of Christ does not need polarity management, but of fidelity; it has no use for perpetual contradictions, but for the immutable deposit of faith entrusted once delivered to the saints.[9]
🔎SEE ALSO:
✅ The Hermeneutic of Absurdity
✅The Mystery of Iniquity: A Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2
[1] Johnson,
Barry. Polarity Management:
Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. Amherst, MA: HRD
Press, 1996.
[2] General Secretariat of the Synod, Pathways
for the Implementation Phase of the Synod (Vatican City: General Secretariat of
the Synod, July 8, 2025), p. 18–19, https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/process/implementation/pathways/250102---ENG-Pathways-for-the-implementation-phase.pdf
[4] Ibid.,
p. 19.
[5] General
Secretariat of the Synod, Working Document for the Continental Stage
(Vatican City: General Secretariat of the Synod, October 25, 2022), 30–31, https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/common/phases/continental-stage/dcs/20221025-ENG-DTC-FINAL-OK.pdf.
[6] Ibid.,
p. 35-36.
[7] Vatican
I, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, Chapter 4; D.1800;
[8] Matthew 5:37
[9] Jude 1:3
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