Scenes from the synod. (signs of the times).

Journalist Robert Kaiser reported on the Second Vatican Council for Time magazine. Now a reporter for Newsweek, he's still in Rome, communicating his impressions of the Vatican scene, most recently last fall's World Synod of Bishops.

"By most official Vatican accounts," Kaiser wrote in an e-mail report, "the synod was a love-fest. The pope praised the bishops for something he called the `climate of communion." By that, I guess he meant that there were no pitched battles on the synod floor. As if there ever were. Maybe the pope and the Curia feared what this synod might have become, and didn't. The bishops could have chosen to vent their frustration with an overcontrolling Curia, which has grown more [assertive] as the pope's powers have diminished."

Writing of the synod's final published message, which Kaiser said "didn't have anything to say about the single most disputed point on the synod floor and in the synod's coffee bars--how the church can make its governance more democratic," he asked, "Am I just being a newsman when I insist that people (particularly bishops) don't debate unless there's something worth debating about? ... It is the bias of a Catholic who would like to see his church become a church of the people. There are a billion Catholics in the world and some 400,000 priests ... and only a few hundred members of the Roman Curia. So I am heartened when I hear that some of the bishops have been asking how the Curia can do `better service.'"

During the synod, Kaiser landed an interview with the increasingly prominent Belgian Cardinal Godfried Daneels of Malines-Brussels, who made three points about the bishops' meeting. First, Daneels said, "The synod was like a retreat where we reflected on some of the basic qualities that make a bishop a good bishop." When Kaiser remarked that "modern corporations have `leadership retreats' all the time," Daneels answered, "Of course, we belong to mankind."

Second, on the bishop in the world. Daneels reported: "We dealt with the unity and the diversity that we see in the world episcopate. We need a strong papacy, and we need a strong episcopate. Not everything needs to be decided by Rome. I am not talking about doctrine but discipline: things like the liturgy, marriage questions."

Finally, on the topic of decision-making in the church, Kaiser told the cardinal the synod didn't get very far. "Daneels implied that I was too impatient. `After all, the synod [as an institution] is only 30 years old. And we are giving the pope some propositions that call for further study on these questions.'"