ROME – In the heart of St Peter’s Square, where every night for the past month the Roman Curia has been staging a rosary for Pope Francis, there stands a towering statue of Saint Peter with one hand pointing out and another hand pointing to the ground.

Roman wags have long said the symbolic meaning in this is that the hand pointing to the ground means this, Vatican City, is where laws are made, and hand pointing out, to the world, is where they are obeyed.

Of late the Vatican has been giving the world an object lesson in the point, calling for an implementation of the pope’s synod on Synodality, one point of which is the empowerment of women and laity, while simultaneously pretending they don’t exist in their nightly rosary for the ailing pontiff.

The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops Saturday published a “Letter on the accompaniment process of the implementation phase of the synod, ‘For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission.’”

This letter had previously been sent to all bishops and eparchs, and through them was addressed to the entire People of God throughout the world.

Among other things, the letter says a 3-year implementation of the 3-year Synod on Synodality was personally approved of by Pope Francis, consisting of several meetings to evaluate the implementation process, and culminating in October 2028 with an ecclesial assembly in Rome.

The October 2028 meeting, when the next ordinary synod would usually take place, will replace the ordinary synod, meaning no new synod will take place, but the next Rome-based gathering will focus instead on “consolidating the path taken so far,” according to the letter.

Launched by Pope Francis in 2021, the Synod on Synodality unfolded at the local, national, continental and universal levels over a 3-year period culminating in two Rome-based gatherings in October 2023 and October 2024, focusing largely on how to make the Church a more welcoming and inclusive place for all of its members, especially women and laypeople.

In the letter, published March 15, Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the Synod, voiced hope that the implementation process would ensure that “synodality is increasingly understood and lived as an essential dimension of the ordinary life of local Churches and the entire Church.”

He said the pope “definitively approved” the start of the process March 11, and that all dioceses, eparchies, national and continental episcopal conferences, and all Eastern Catholic Churches are called to participate, engaging the various religious communities, lay associations and ecclesial movements present in their areas.

The Synod on Synodality, Grech says, “is part of the ordinary magisterium of the Successor of Peter,” and as such, “must be received accordingly.”

Grech argued that the implementation phase of the synod is aimed at helping the Church “to make consistent choices” globally and is a process aimed at ensuring a broad “reception of the orientations” outlined in the final document of the October 2024 synod, “adapted appropriately to local cultures and the needs of communities.”

Pope Francis’s insistence on a reception and implementation of the Synod on Synodality is noteworthy, given that the synod itself faced sharp criticism and resistance on the part of some bishops’ conferences, with a few refusing to participate, and even some participants who were skeptical of the process.

The pope’s decision to skip the next synod and to instead hold a global ecclesial meeting focusing on the implementation of the Synod on Synodality, which many observers see as a defining aspect of his papal legacy, is demonstrative of his intention to ensure that everyone steps into line, and that this process is not simply ignored.

It will also be an opportunity to incorporate the findings of the 10 study groups the pope has established to delve into topics of specific interest that emerged during the Synod on Synodality, such as the women’s diaconate, issues related to canon law, and the authority of bishops and ecclesial conferences.

Grech in his letter said that the implementation phase over the next three years “serves as an opportunity to re-engage the people who have contributed and to present the fruits gathered from listening to all the Churches and the discernment of the Pastors in the Synodal Assembly.”

In this regard, the work to be conducted will rely largely on synodal teams composed of priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, and lay men and women in collaboration with their bishop.

“This process will also offer Dioceses that have invested less in the synodal path an opportunity to recover the steps not yet taken and to form their own synodal teams,” Grech said.

He announced a Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies that will take place October 24-26, and which highlights “the commitment to building a Church that is increasingly synodal within the horizon of the hope that does not disappoint.”

Steps to be taken over the next three years include the May 2025 publication of a support document on the implementation phase containing guidelines for how it will unfold, and the June-December 2025 implementation stage in local churches.

In the first half of 2027 “evaluation assemblies” will be held in dioceses and eparchies, and in the second half of that year, an evaluation assembly will be held at the national and international levels, with continental assemblies scheduled for the first half of 2028.

An Instrumentum laboris, or official working document for the October 2028 ecclesial assembly will be published in June of that year, with the process culminating in the Vatican-based gathering.

One of the core themes of the Synod on Synodality was the issue of women in the Church, with a significant amount of discussion touching on how to ensure that they, and laypeople more broadly, are better represented and included in meaningful leadership positions in the Church.

Pope Francis has also been discussing the role of women in his meetings with the Council of Cardinals advising him on governance and reform.

He has taken several steps to give women, in particular, more space and more of a voice in the Roman Curia itself, naming two women – Sister Simona Brambilla and Sister Raffaella Petrini – as leaders of top Vatican departments. He has also named a layman, Paolo Ruffini, as head of his communications office.

However, even as the pope rolled out his plan for ensuring his vision for a more collaborative Church where women and laypeople have a stronger voice, his own governing bureaucracy appears to be ignoring that vision.

Since Feb. 23, the Secretariat of State in collaboration with the Basilica of St. Peter’s have been organizing nightly rosaries to pray for the intentions of Pope Francis, asking dicastery heads and other top officials to lead the prayer – with the exception of the women and laypeople that lead departments.

So far, every nightly rosary – which is not a liturgy and can therefore be led by anyone, and not necessarily a priest – has been led by a cleric, mostly cardinals, and a few bishops and priests.

On March 6, for example, the rosary was led by Spanish Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Religious, which is run by Italian Sister Simona Brambilla, who was appointed to the post by Pope Francis earlier this year, making her the first woman to ever lead a Vatican department, and technically Artime’s boss.

However, organizers apparently side-stepped Brambilla and asked her number-two official to lead the rosary that night instead.

Similarly, the rosary said for Pope Francis on March 14 was led by Argentinian Father Lucio Adrian Ruiz, secretary for the Dicastery for Communications, with its prefect, Italian layman Paolo Ruffini, standing off to the side.

The next day, the March 15 rosary was organized by the Governorate of the Vatican City State, which though not considered a dicastery holds significant authority, especially in administration of the small nation-state.

Yet despite the fact that the governorate is led by Petrini, she was not asked to lead the rosary, but her number-two official, Italian Archbishop Emilio Nappa was asked to do it instead, meaning that she, like Brambilla and Ruffini, was side-stepped for her second-in-command, presumably because none of them wear a collar.

While not entirely unsurprising for a clerical body like the Roman Curia, an institution infamous for its stubborn resistance to change, the absence among the rosary leaders of any of the women or laypeople Francis has put into leadership is noteworthy.

It is indicative, namely, of the clericalist internal culture that Pope Francis has fought so hard to reform since his election in 2013: one that says, in here we make the laws, but out there, in the rest of the world, is where we expect them to be applied.

As the world prepares to implement the vision Francis is fighting so hard to imprint in the life and mind of the Church, it remains to be seen to what degree, if any, those changes will begin take root under his own roof.

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen