Discussing his new book on synodality, the retired president of the Pontifical Council (now Dicastery) for Legislative Texts said that synodality consists not simply in collaboration between the clergy and the laity, but in shared governance.
Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio told Vatican News that just as it is unthinkable for a priest to leave his congregation and celebrate Mass alone in a crypt chapel, it should also be unthinkable for a parish priest to govern apart from the laity.
Synodality, he said, “consists in gathering, engaging in dialogue, discerning, and deciding upon the good of the Church—for instance, the good of a specific parish. These four activities, carried out jointly by pastors and the faithful, find their institutional home within structures of synodality—for example, in the case of a parish, within the parish pastoral council.”