(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV said that religious “are called to become experts in synodality” during a video address delivered on Wednesday.

“In a special way, those in religious life are called to become experts in synodality due to the opportunities afforded by community life to practice it, as well as the very way that your Congregations are organized,” said Leo in a message delivered to the 2026 Annual Assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the U.S.

Leo expressed his pleasure upon learning that the Assembly would include “a synodal method of listening, discussion and discernment” and shared his hope that this “format of fraternal and receptive dialogue” would enable the sisters to discern the Holy Spirit’s voice about “the present and future of consecrated life in the nations where you serve.”

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Prelates such as Cardinal Raymond Burke have warned that promoting synodality, sometimes described as a kind of democratic decision-making process, undermines the hierarchical nature of the Church.

In an address at an international conference held in Rome on October 3, 2023, the day before the first session of the Synod on Synodality began (October 4, 2023), His Eminence stressed that, in its canonical tradition:

… the Church is not described as synodal but, instead, as hierarchical communion (cf. LG 25). It is the pastors (bishops) in the communion, safeguarded and fostered by the Petrine Office, i.e., the hierarchy, who have the responsibility for the doctrinal, liturgical, and moral guidance of the Church. The synod is an aid offered to the pastors so that they can fulfill their service. It never replaces and cannot replace the pastoral office willed and instituted by Christ Himself.

The cardinal went on say that the clear intention of the Synod on Synodality “is to profoundly change the hierarchical constitution of the Church.”[1] As the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear: “To the apostles and their successors Christ has entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying, and governing in his name and by his power” (CCC 873).[2]

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