Even if some members of the Synod on Synodality end up feeling disappointed by its results, “God’s providence is at work in this assembly”, the spiritual adviser to the Synod says. Source: CNS.
“The triumph of the good cannot be frustrated,” and “we may be at peace whatever the result” of the Synod’s month long second session, Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe said on Sunday in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall before members began reading, discussing, amending and voting on the final document to be presented to Pope Francis this Saturday.
He also cautioned people, especially the media, against trying to look for “startling decisions, headlines” to come out of the final text, saying, at a Vatican briefing with reporters, that that would be a mistake.
The document will need to be read as something seeking to bring deep renewal of the Church, not “through dramatic decisions, but it evokes new ways of being a Church in which we relate to each other much more profoundly in Christ and to Christ much more profoundly with each other,” he said at the afternoon briefing.
“I think many people in the Synod, out of the Synod, in the Church, still struggle to understand the nature of the Synod.
“They still tend to see it as a parliamentary body which will make big administrative, structural changes. I think it’s natural because that’s the model that dominates our world,” he told reporters.
“But we’ve seen and it’s been repeated endlessly that is not the sort of body it is.”
The world is experiencing growing “violence and war, social disintegration. You’ve only to look at the election process in the United States to see how there is a danger of social collapse,” he said.
“In this perilous difficult moment, I think the Church has a very particular vocation to be a sign of Christ’s peace and Christ’s communion and that means all sorts of steps which will not make headlines.”
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As Synod nears end, preacher urges members to be at peace with results (By Carol Glatz, CNS)
