The “continental phase” of the Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality was launched by two cardinals on Friday at a press conference held at the Vatican.
They also informed media that the only person capable of “hijacking” this synod will be the Holy Spirit.
The global process, which started in October 2021, is now in its second stage, and by late October or early November, a paper summarizing the findings of the listening sessions and surveys carried out in different nations up to this month will be created.
A “stupendous figure”?
On August 26, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, provided an update on the attendance at the synod’s opening session.
He said that, up to this point, the office of the Synod of Bishops had received little over 100 summaries overall, including from each of the 114 separate bishops’ conferences.
The Luxembourg cardinal and Jesuit said that “this astonishing statistic informs us that certainly, the Church is in synod,” adding that 98% of the 114 bishops’ conferences have also designated a synod team or contact person for the synodal process.
According to Hollerich, the synopses that bishops’ conferences send to Rome “are the fruit of discernment from the syntheses received from the dioceses,” whereas the synopses of the dioceses are the results of “listening sessions” and surveys of parishes, associations, movements, religious congregations, Catholic schools, and Catholic universities.
The Vatican has also received summaries from Eastern Catholic Churches, worldwide unions of religious communities, institutes of consecrated life, and organizations of apostolic life for review.
Additionally, Hollerich brought up a social media study that 237 Catholic “influencers” and more than 100 organizations shared in seven different languages.
The Red Informática de la Iglesia en América Latina (RIIAL) and iMission collaborated on the pilot project, “The Church Listens to You.”
Out of the roughly 20 million individuals who were contacted, as indicated by the number of following the participating Catholic celebrities had on social media, the synod office reported that 110,000 people completed the poll.
Cardinal Hollerich further pointed out that over 1,000 contributions from people or organizations outside the Church were made during the first stage of the synod.
He highlighted the need of honoring both number and quality of involvement.
The practice of hearing the “voice of the Spirit”
According to Hollerich, the information gathered thus far has persuaded him that “we are facing an ecclesial dialogue without precedent in the history of the Church, not only for the quantity of responses received or the number of participants (which to some who want to rely solely on numbers — which can only be approximative — may seem limited) but also for the quality of participation.”
Cardinal Hollerich and Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, highlighted the need of listening and discernment during the news conference on Friday.
The People of God consultation “requires discernment precisely because no one in the Church has the unique claim to the truth,” according to Grech.
“Not everything uttered is the speech of the Spirit: one must discern the voice of the Spirit among the cacophony of voices,” he continued. When the community agrees on a position, “therein lies the role of discernment, which is already active in the process of listening.”
Grech, the chairman of the Synod of Bishops, responded to a journalist’s inquiry on whether Catholic priests and laity who value the Latin Mass will have their views heard throughout this process.
He noted that in addition to listening to the people, the bishop “needs to be listened to.”
Because it may sometimes turn into a diatribe on one side or the other, he explained.
“Pay attention to what the Spirit is saying to the modern church.
This synodal process has this as its purpose and objective.
As a result, the Church gains practical experience with this synodal approach.
However, he emphasized that nobody should experience exclusion or suffer as a result of having their voice ignored.
A group of carefully chosen specialists
A group of “experts” will prepare the text for the continental phase of the synod, which is also known as the first Instrumentum Laboris, or working paper, according to Cardinal Grech.
The text was created by about 20 persons, including a religious sister, a professor from a university, and Catholic priests. A professor from the African continent has not yet declared her attendance.
Father Ormund Rush, associate professor of religion and theology at the Catholic University of Australia, Monsignor Philippe Bordeyne, president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome, Father David McCallum, SJ, executive director of the US-based Discerning Leadership Program, and Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis and project coordinator for the UK-based “The Road to a Synodal Church” project are some of
The paper will also get change proposals from the ordinary council members of the synod and ultimate approval from them.
Stolen synod?
Cardinal Hollerich was questioned about remarks he made in an interview earlier this year, when it seemed he said he disagreed with the Church’s doctrine on the sinfulness of homosexual conduct and wished it to change, during the question and answer segment of the news conference.
The cardinal was questioned about whether he intended the Synod on Synodality to alter Church doctrine on this subject.
The cardinal and bishop of Luxembourg said, “I have no personal agenda for this synod.
I firmly believe in Church tradition, and I don’t think modifying theology is vital in this process, he said.
In order for everyone to feel at home in the Church, he said, it is crucial to listen to everybody, particularly parents, and to have “a shift in mentality.”
This welcome, according to Hollerich, “does not exclude debate.” However, if we shut the door, we will just drive more people into despair, which is something we do not want.
He said that the pope had given him the task of “listening and serving” at the synod, and he expressed a desire to undergo conversion as a result of the synodal process.
A question asking the cardinal whether he was concerned that political agendas would hijack the synod was likewise denied.
Because I believe in God, and because prayer, meditation, and listening to other people offer me strength and hope, he said, “I’m not scared. When you wander through the desert, like in the Book of Exodus, there are temptations, but we may overcome these temptations with God’s assistance.
In response to the query, Cardinal Grech said, if I may use the phrase, “the synod will be hijacked by one, the Holy Spirit.”
As a journalist had questioned, Hollerich stated that the synod’s task “is not to create a ‘shock’ for the Church, but to listen to what the People of God are saying.”
The concept of the synod, in his opinion, is founded on ecclesial agreement since it is a highly complicated issue that cannot be reduced to simplistic perspectives.