While the term “synodality” is not found in any Second Vatican Council documents, the Council’s vision and definition of the Church is at the heart of synodality, says a message marking Vatican II’s 60th anniversary. Source: CNS
Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, published a message on the Second Vatican Council and synodality yesterday, ahead of today’s 60th anniversary of the opening of the council.
The “magna carta” of the 2021-2023 process of the synod “is the council’s doctrine on the Church, particularly its theology of the people of God, a people whose ‘condition is the dignity and freedom of the children of God, in whose heart the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple’,” he said, quoting from the council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
St John XXIII opened the council on October 11, 1962. All the bishops from all over the world were invited to participate in its four sessions, which St Paul VI concluded December 8, 1965.
The current synod process with its listening sessions around the world, its prayer and discernment is focused on the theme, “For a synodal church: Communion, participation and mission.”
Those three words, Cardinal Grech wrote, “are eminently conciliar words. The Church that we are called to dream and build is a community of women and men drawn together in communion by the one faith, our common baptism and the same Eucharist, in the image of God the Trinity: women and men who together, in the diversity of ministries and charisms received, actively participate in the establishment of the kingdom of God, with the missionary impetus of bringing to all the joyful witness of Christ, the only saviour of the world.”
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Dream of ‘synodality’ is a fruit of Vatican II, cardinal writes (By Cindy Wooden, CNS)
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