Participants in the two-year global consultation process for the Synod of Bishops on synodality hope the process will help radically change the way the Church takes decisions. Source: Crux.
“My expectation is that a new way of doing things, which will allow us to see synodality being lived at every level of the Church, is now underway,” Spaniard Carmen Peña Garcia, a synod participant, said..
“The Synod should not be reduced to this moment, these two years, because synodality is a call for co-responsibility and co-participation of the entire people of God in the life and mission of the Church, with baptism being the entry card,” she said.
During the next year, a consultation will be launched at a parish level, with the faithful being invited to join in dialogue sessions. In March, there will be time for a diocesan and national gathering, followed by a continental one, with the process concluding in October 2023, with a general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, set to take place in Rome.
At the launch of the process at the Vatican on Saturday, those attending were mostly laity, priests and religious.
Some participants had to embark on a months-long process to get a green light from their governments to fly to Rome, as was the case of Australian Susan Pascoe. Australia’s bishops were taking part in last week’s Plenary Council first assembly so did not attend the Vatican launch.
A member of the Synod’s Commission on Methodology who has worked both for the Australian Church and the Australian government, Ms Pascoe said she values “the authenticity of the process. I see hope in this process, and I trust in it. So, I hope other Catholics will answer the invitation issued by the Pope for them to participate.”
FULL STORY
Experts see synod as ‘biggest consultation exercise in human history’ (By Inés San Martín, Crux)
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