Twenty theologians are meeting in Rome for 10 days of preparatory work preceding the drafting of the guiding document for the next assembly of the Synod on Synodality. Source: CNA.
The June 4–13 closed-door gathering of experts in theology, ecclesiology, and canon law is being held at the Jesuit general curia down the street from the Vatican.
The Secretariat of the Synod expects to release a document on the June meeting in early July.
This initial text will “prepare the way” for the drafting of the document – dubbed the “Instrumentum Laboris 2” – that will guide the work of the second session of the Synod on Synodality in October, Fr Giacomo Costa, SJ, said in a press release yesterday.
Fr Costa, the special secretary for the Synod on Synodality, said the group of theologians is meeting to carry out “an initial analysis” of reports from local communities and to discern on their “questions and theological reflections”.
The October Synod assembly continues the multiyear Synod on Synodality, which began in October 2021 and has included stages of discernment and discussion at various levels of the Church. The first session of the Synod took place in October 2023.
Theologians and other Church experts at the June meeting are reading and discussing new reports from local churches reflecting on the 41-page Synthesis Report released at the end of the October 2023 gathering.
Participants are also considering the question “How to be a synodal Church in mission”.
The international experts are also reading and reflecting on material shared by women’s religious orders, university faculties, religious associations, and others, as well as reports from a listening session with 300 parish priests held near Rome in the town of Sacrofano from April 28–May 2.
FULL STORY
Theologians hold closed-door meeting in Rome on guidance document for October Synod (By Hannah Brockhaus, CNA)
