LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD - 2023: #3 REPORTS AND COMMENTARY, FROM ROME AND ELSEWHERE, ON THE SYNOD ON SYNODALITY: “

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LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD - 2023: #3

REPORTS AND COMMENTARY, FROM ROME AND ELSEWHERE, ON THE SYNOD ON SYNODALITY: “FOR A SYNODAL CHURCH – COMMUNION, PARTICIPATION, MISSION”Edited by Xavier Rynne II10 . 6 . 23

Pastors are teachers of apostolic doctrine, not teachers of doctrines they have invented, nor proponents or spokespersons of ideologies at odds with apostolic doctrine. Their exercise of pastoral office involves receiving, preserving, and transmitting apostolic doctrine without distorting it. The wisdom of Vincent of Lérins offers an admonition in this regard. He wrote:

"Guard this deposit [of faith]. What has been entrusted to you and not what you have invented: a matter not of wit, but of learning; not of private adoption, but of public tradition; what you have received and not what you have thought. You are not the author but the guardian, not a teacher but a learner, not the founder but a follower. Guard this deposit. Preserve the gift of Catholic faith. Keep it from violation or adulteration. What has been entrusted to you keep in your possession and let it be handed on by you. You have received gold, give back gold. Do not substitute one thing for another. . . . Teach that just as it has been taught to you. And while you express yourself in a new way do not utter news things. (Commonitorium, n. 53)"