It was 21 September 1963, just a few days before
the resumption of the Second Vatican Council and the new Pope, Paul VI,
who had been elected the previous June, gave an important speech to the
Roman Curia, mentioning the possibility of bringing bishops into the
Curia dicasteries."Should the ecumenical Council express the wish to see a bishop - particularly diocese leaders - associated in some way to the supreme leader of the Catholic Church, in accordance with the doctrine of the Catholic Church and canonical law, for the purposes of study and ecclesiastical governance, the Curia will certainly not oppose this.”
The following November, during the Council’s heated debate about the methods used by the former Holy Office, a proposal was apparently made for a body of international bishops to be established to help the Pope in his task. The body would have the functions once performed by the Cardinals’ consistory and would be consulted on general Church related problems. Paul VI decided to take on this decision-making task himself.
Two years later, on 14 September 1965, during the inauguration of the Council’s fourth and final session, Paul VI announced the establishment of the Synod of Bishops which “will be convened according to the Church’s needs by the Roman Catholic Pope, for his consultation and collaboration, where he deems this is necessary for the good of the Catholic Church.” Paolo VI claimed this new body could help the Pope in his role as leader, although his task would be merely consultative not deliberative.
The Pope inaugurated the newly created Synod of Bishops in September 1967. The first four-day-long assembly in Rome was on the theme: “preservation and reinforcement of the Catholic faith, its integrity, vigour, development and doctrinal and historical coherence.” A theme that is very similar to that of the Synod that is about to open in the Vatican.
In his opening homily, Paul VI expressed the full extent of his concern about the crisis that was growing within the Church: “The concern for doctrinal faithfulness which was so solemnly proclaimed at the start of the recent Council, must guide our post-conciliar period. The higher the number and seriousness of the dangers that threaten faith today, the more care needs to be taken by those to whom Christ has given a mandate to teach, spread his message and guard the “warehouse” of faith.
Paul VI referred to these as “huge dangers” “because of the irreligious orientation of the modern mentality and insidious dangers which are posed by the publications of teachers and writers,[…]who are often more eager to adapt Catholic dogma to profane thinking and language from inside the Church than to obey the teachings of the Church, giving way to the opinion that: one, neglecting orthodox principles, one is free to pick out the truths of faith which their instinctive personal judgement tells them are more acceptable, rejecting the rest and two, that the doctrinal heritage of the Catholic Church can be subject to revision in order to give Christianity new ideological dimensions that are very different from the theological ones which the Church’s authentic tradition outlined, showing immense reverence for God’s thinking.”
The Pope went on to tell the bishops of the new international consultation body that “As we know, faith is not the result of an arbitrary o purely naturalistic interpretation of the Word of God, just as it is not the rising religious expression of a collective opinion of individuals who call themselves believers and lack an official leader. Neither is it the result of acquiescence towards philosophical or sociological currents of a transient historical moment. Faith is an adherence of our whole spirit to the wonderful and merciful message of salvation, communicated to us through the bright and secret paths of the Revelation; Faith is not only a search, but above all a certainty.”
During that first Synod, some Fathers had asked for a “rule of faith” to be prepared, in order to re-introduce the content of the Catholic Faith in a clear and simple way. In June the following year, in 1968, Pope Paul VI proclaimed his “Credo of the people of God”, based on a draft sent by philosopher Jacques Maritain to Swiss cardinal Charles Journet.