Posted on 03/16/2024 11:17:12 AM PDT by ebb tide
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Leaders of the Synod on Synodality have published two new texts, highlighting Pope Francis’ plans to implement a more permanent effect of the multi-year synod by the format of study groups for key synod themes.
At a press conference today, a panel of speakers comprised of the Synod on Synodality’s leading members presented two lengthy documents, showing the results of the General Secretariat of the Synod’s recent workings in order to orchestrate the workings of the upcoming October session of the Synod on Synodality.
The first is called “How to be a synodal Church in mission? Five perspectives to deepen theologically in view of the Second Session.” It presents what the text describes as “the guiding question,” given that the text adds how the Synod on Synodality has “made us increasingly aware of our mission.”
The second detailed the study groups on key synod themes which Pope Francis – in February 17 – tasked the Roman Curia to form in cooperation with the General Secretariat of the Synod. It is called, “Study groups on questions arising in the First Session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to deepen in collaboration with the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia.”
Both texts demonstrate the self-reflective, circular, discussion model as a chief theme and emerging new style of operation for the Church, and appear to posit the future of the Church as being intrinsically oriented toward the “synodal” process.
The first document noted that the “ongoing synodal process is bringing out a new way of exercising the Petrine ministry.” It also heavily emphasized a need for the Synod on Synodality and its accompanying style and process to become a natural part of the Church’s entire workings.
A need was raised of ensuring local participation in the synod process, as noted in the October 2023 Synthesis Report, “to keep the synodal dynamic alive in the local Churches so that an increasing number of people can experience it directly.”
READ: Synod on Synodality report pushes female deacons and lay governance but avoids giving firm answers
Questioned about topics such as priestly celibacy, homosexuality, LGBT, realtor general of the synod Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich told the assembled journalists that the synod was not on any specific topic. He added that he continued to keep his own personal interest or preferences out of the event as a whole.
Hollerich was joined at the presenting table by Cardinal Mario Grech – secretary general of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops – along with leading theologians of the Vatican Curia.
But the chief news from today’s conference was regarding the study groups. The synod leadership team highlighted the February 17 instruction of Pope Francis to establish study groups in the Roman Curia to delve into ten themes which have been highlighted from October’s Synthesis Report. The lengthier second document was devoted entirely to detailing and explaining these themes.
JUST IN: These are the topics Pope Francis has tasked Roman Curia to study in conjunction with the Synod on Synodality, picking themes from the October 2023 Synthesis Report.
List below, revealed today by @Synod_va
They will serve to guide working document for October Synod. https://t.co/STUiS9XRBz pic.twitter.com/VSk8kjBhFk— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) March 14, 2024
The themes are listed below, as outlined by the Pope in a February 22 letter he sent to Grech but which was only released today:
While no topic is devoted entirely to some of the more controversial talking points of the synod – such as female deacons, lay ministry, married clergy – such aspects are contained within the ten themes.
For instance, the fifth discussion theme about “ministerial forms” includes the subject of the role women in the Church and “a growth in the pastoral responsibilities entrusted to them in all areas of the life and mission of the Church.” It is this question which will encompass the “possible access of women to the diaconate,” drawing on the October 2023 Synthesis Report and the 2016 and 2020 commissions on female deacons.
The synod leadership team noted that the list excludes the topics which will be chiefly discussed at the October 2024 session of the Synod on Synodality. That upcoming meeting will officially be focussed on the theme of “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
The study groups are a novel format in the Synod on Synodality so far, and give the first sign that the nearly three-year event will be further elongated until at least June 2025 – the date at which the study groups are set to conclude their work. The Synod on Synodality is due to end in October 2024.
The General Secretariat of the Synod is given the role of overseeing and “animating” the various studies of all groups which convene to discuss the ten topics. Additionally, the General Secretariat will be helped in this task by the International Theological Commission (which advises the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith), and the Pontifical Biblical Commission. Another tool in this endeavor will be a newly formed canonical commission which will be formed by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts and work for the General Secretariat.
In so far as what effect today’s developments will have on the upcoming October meetings of the Synod on Synodality, the first document presents the clear, guiding principle for the discussions. The month-long event will be devoted, officially, to the themes which will have emerged from the question of “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
As previously outlined by the General Secretariat of the Synod in December 2023, local bishops and bishops’ conferences are currently tasked with compiling reflections on October’s Synthesis Report.
READ: Synod on Synodality leadership unveils next stages in build-up to critical 2024 event
Summaries from bishops conferences and dioceses must be submitted to the Vatican by May 15, 2024 and will “serve as the basis for the drafting of the Instrumentum laboris.”
The various themes as discussed by the Roman Curia discussion groups will “also flow into the materials underlying the Instrumentum laboris” which will underpin the discussion of the October 2024 synod meeting.
In addition, the input of an international conference of priests – due to take place near Rome in late April – will also guide the formation of October’s Instrumentum laboris.
According to a timeline released in December by the Vatican, the Instrumentum laboris will be written by late June 2024.
But such additional information about how the Instrumentum laboris will be written appear to be of secondary significance to the synod leadership team, in contrast to the news about the papally-orchestrated study groups.
Indeed, the study groups appear set to make permanent the workings and styles of the Synod on Synodality in the Vatican and throughout the wider Church, ensuring that no matter the outcome of the October synod meetings, the Synod on Synodality will remain a watershed moment.
While no topic is devoted entirely to some of the more controversial talking points of the synod – such as female deacons, lay ministry, married clergy – such aspects are contained within the ten themes.
For instance, the fifth discussion theme about “ministerial forms” includes the subject of the role women in the Church and “a growth in the pastoral responsibilities entrusted to them in all areas of the life and mission of the Church.” It is this question which will encompass the “possible access of women to the diaconate,” drawing on the October 2023 Synthesis Report and the 2016 and 2020 commissions on female deacons.
While he is persecuting the good holy contemplative nuns, Bergoglio is promoting his "nuns on a bus" and pushing for womyn dekeons.
Ping
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