The entire Church summoned to participate in the Synod
Pope Francis has invited the entire Church to question itself about its synodality, that is, about its ability to make the communion, participation and mission in their life. The Bishops and the People of God will listen together to the Spirit.
After an initial moment of reflection in Rome on October 9, the inauguration Mass took place on Sunday the 10th, in which the Pope assured that Jesus, as he did with the rich man in the Gospel, "calls us in these days to to empty ourselves, to free ourselves from what is mundane, and also from our repetitive pastoral models; to question ourselves about what God wants to tell us at this time and in what direction he wants to guide us ".
On Sunday the 17th the synodal process began in the private churches; "The objective of this phase is to consult the people of God so that the synodal process is carried out while listening to all the baptized".
The Diocesan Discernment Phase It will culminate in a pre-synodal meeting and its conclusions will be sent to the respective Episcopal Conference, where the bishops, gathered in Assembly, will make a synthesis with the contributions of the different dioceses to send to the Synod Secretariat before April 2022.
With this material, coming from all the particular churches around the world, a instrumentum laboris which will be published in September 2022 and which will be sent to the particular churches to work on the second phase of the Synod: the continental one.
the continental phasewhich will last until March 2023, has as objective that the continental conferences dialogue about the instrumentum laboris, to carry out a discernment, taking into account the cultural particularities of each continent.
Lastly, with the reflections provided, a final document will be drawn up and sent to the Synod Secretariat to prepare a new instrumentum laboris facing the Universal Synodal Assembly which will take place in Rome on October 2023.
