ABSTRACT

The article aims to explore the configuration of the right to good governance in current canonical reflection and its connection with the instances that emerged from the recent Synodal Assembly “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission” (Final Document 2024, nos. 79-108). In the scholarship regarding this topic, the need has repeatedly emerged to provide for greater recognition of the guarantee of the faithful in line with the cognitive and participatory processes of modern science of administration and a more effective protection of the quality of hierarchical action (functionality and rationality). The aspirations to rethink the system suggested by the synodal assembly can be compared with the proposals and suggestions elaborated by canonical constitutionalism. On the subject of participation, the Synodal Assembly insisted on the articulation and structuring of decision-making processes, on the care of transparency, reporting and evaluation, and on the development of participatory bodies. The paper examines the context and the elaboration of the main proposals in this regard, the content and the merits of the concepts referred to (transparency, accountability, evaluation) in view of their possible implementation. Good governance, understood as a good of communion, synthesizes and expresses the centrality of the rights of the faithful and the rationality of the exercise of power, but it also requires adequate technical and procedural development.