Over the weekend, the General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality focuses on decision-making processes, highlighting the need for transparency, accountability, and evaluation.
By Christopher Wells
Work in the Synod over the past few days has concentrated on the Pathways section of the Instrumentum laboris, with a particular focus on how Church leaders make and implement decisions.
During the daily press conference on Monday, Dr Sheila Pires, the secretary of the Synod’s Commission for Information, emphasized the importance of hearing the experiences of the Church in different contexts, noting the problems that sometimes arise in finding harmony between Christian traditions and local practices and laws.
Insights and suggestions, she said, have come from those already experiencing diverse existing realities.
Dr Pires noted some of the more prominent themes of the past few days, including the importance of children in Catholic schools, and the role of schools in formation and evangelization.
Another important topic was the question of abuse, especially abuse suffered by women religious, with various speakers highlighting the need to promote policies and procedures to address the issue.
Once again, the role of women in the Church generally was an important topic of discussion, including the need for women to have a greater role in seminary formation.
The General Assembly gathers on Monday for the IX General Congregation
For his part, the president of the Commission for Information, Dr Paolo Ruffini, highlighted the discussion on the need to involve women, and lay-people in general, in decision making processes within the Church.
He also addressed issues surrounding accountability, including what that means in an ecclesial context and how it can be achieved.
Other topics mentioned in the numerous interventions over the past few days included the need to enhance already existing synodal realities, learning from those Churches that already practice synodality in various decrees; and the need to resist any kind of clericalism, through closeness, dynamic relationships, and involving people throughout the Church in decision-making.
General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops – Ninth General Congregation
Sr Gloria Liliana Franco Echeverri, ODN
Among the guests at Monday’s press conference was Sr Gloria Liliana Franco Echeverri, ODN, president of the Latin American Confederation of Religious Men and Women (CLAR), and a witness of the synodal process.
In her opening remarks, Sr Liliana said the Assembly’s reflections “place before us the action of Jesus,” the evangelical values and style that must permeate synodality.
She also highlighted the need for meaningful formation based on committed witness, and undertaken with others in a way that “allows us to adopt the style of Jesus.”
Sr Liliana also spoke about discernment, which offers the possibility of determining what the Holy Spirit is asking of the Church. Discernment, both personal and communal, she said, helps us to look together in our diversity for certitude concerning the journey and the mission. To this end, she emphasized the importance of participatory structures throughout the Church.
Finally, Sr Liliana took note of the discussions on Monday morning, which largely revolved around the concepts of transparency and culture, not so much as tools, but as a culture “that must exist in the Church” and that must permeate the methods and identity of the Church.
Monday’s daily press briefing
Bishop Edouard Sinayobe
Bishop Edouard Sinayobye of Cyangugu in Rwanda took the floor next, speaking about the situation in his country following the horrors of the genocide that swept his country thirty years ago.
He began by saying that the work of the Synod is comparable to what the apostles lived and experienced in the Upper Room at Pentecost, where they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Turning to the situation in Rwanda today, he remarked on the process of reconciliation aimed at unity that is still ongoing some three decades after the genocide. The Church, he said, is working at the pastoral level to heal people, accompanying both victims and perpetrators.
The Synod, he said, “is something we are living as an opportunity for strengthening unity and reconciliation,” a lived teaching that helps Rwandans understand that in the journey forward must be based on a fraternal and spiritual lifestyle.
He said the experience of synodality is an opportunity to deepen the different approaches aimed at creating unity by helping to live in a spirit of communion.
Bishop Sinayobye also emphasized the importance of participation and listening, and the need for missionaries evangelization.
Panelists at the daily Synod press briefing: Dr Pires, Bishop Sinayobye, Sr Liliana, Archbishop Stankevics, Dr Ruffini
Archbishop Zbignevs Stankevics
Finally, the Archbishop of Riga, Zbignevs Sankevics, told reporters that the Synod responds “to a deep desire in my heart to involve every baptized person in the Church,” to make them missionary evangelizers in order “to expand the kingdom of God throughout the world.”
He recalled telling reporters, when he was first made a bishop, of his “strategic goals” of fostering spiritual rebirth, involving all Catholics, all Christians, all men and women of good will. And he expressed his “deep conviction” that the Synod must aim at “freeing the charisms of every baptized person.”
According to the Latvian archbishop, this goal is related to the notions of co-responsibility and decentralization within the Church – but as an expression of ecclesial and spiritual communion rather than in a secular or democratic manner.
Archbishop Sankevics highlighted paragraph 58 of the Instrumentum laboris, which refers to Gaudium et spes and focuses on true discernment of the presence and designs of God. The final goal of the synod, he said, is mission, of making a Church “on the move” ever more missionary.
He concluded by saying the Synod must discern by looking at the various ecclesial efforts throughout the world, determining where good fruits are found in local communities and learning from them.
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Watch Monday’s Synod Press Briefing
On Monday afternoon, the working groups will make prepare their reports, while Tuesday morning will see the General Assembly begin work on the Third Module, “Places”.
