WelCom August 2024
The newly released working document for the Synod on Synodality offers inspiration, while revealing the journey is far from over in realising the fullness of the Church’s mission.
On 9 July, the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod released the working document for the second session of the Synod on Synodality, which takes place at the Vatican, 2–7 October. The document centres on the upcoming discussions on the topic of ‘how to be a missionary synodal church’.
After an introduction that recaps the timeline of the Synod, it outlines ‘the foundations of the vision of a missionary synodal Church,’ noting that it does not intend to provide ‘a complete treatise on ecclesiology’ but rather a reflection ‘placed at the service of the particular work of discernment’ for the Synod’s upcoming 2024 session in Rome.
The document then examines the relationships that sustain the Church; the paths for nurturing such relationships, particularly formation, discernment, participatory decision-making and transparency; and the concrete contexts in which such relationships are found. The document also makes clear that ‘synodality is not an end in itself’ or ‘an alternative’ to the Church’s communion with the triune God through the salvific work of Jesus Christ; rather, it is a way of living and working (‘modus vivendi et operandi’) together as the Church.
The text is an invitation ‘to reflect deeply upon the grace of our relationship to God, the Most Holy Trinity, and to one another as incorporated into Trinitarian life in Christ by the Spirit,’ said Bishop Daniel E Flores of Brownsville, Texas, lead coordinator for the synodal process in the United States.
Bishop Flores said that ‘these relations are practically lived out in our local communities and in the universal Church and are at the service of the mission. The quality of our relations, rooted in charity, their theological and practical shape at all levels, are at the heart of synodal discernment and renewal in the Church,’ he added.
Source: OSV News