ROME – In the annals of church affairs, some synods are sufficiently famous – or, as the case may be, infamous – as to merit their own informal title. In the late 9th century, for instance, Pope Stephen VI decided to dig up his dead predecessor, Formosus, and put him on trial, which ended with the corpse of the deceased pontiff being tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber.
The episode has gone down in history as the “cadaver synod.”
Presumably, nothing quite that dramatic is going to happen over the next month, after the curtain goes up on Wednesday on the first of two Synods of Bishops on synodality summoned by Pope Francis. Yet even before it starts, we’ve got a good candidate for the unofficial moniker of the event: The “murmuring” synod.
