For Immediate Release
CCRI Contact: Ms. Rene Reid, director
Email: rene.reid@CatholicChurchReformIntl.org
Telephone: +775-825-9196 off; +775-772-1210 cell
June 3, 2023
North America faces a challenge due to the vast number of conservative bishops who, when given the task of appointing delegates to the Synod, are inclined to choose their own staff whom they trust will support their conservative views to protect their employment. CCRI has sent this letter to about 30 people who have potential influence in nominating or approving who from North America will be invited to attend the General Assembly in Rome this October. The list includes Pope Francis, the Synod office in Rome, the organizing committee, and those serving on the Canadian and U.S. Continental synod committees, along with a few key bishops.
If having a reform-minded Catholic attend the Synod in Rome this October from the U.S.is dependent on receiving a nomination from a bishop, our chances are little to none. And now even greater concern was raised over this recent article in NCR: The US bishops are meeting in June. Synodality is not on the agenda. Massimo Faggioli recently expressed his own disappointment in an online presentation that the U.S. bishops who organized their bi-annual agenda find Eucharistic renewal/revival more important than synodality. They have chosen not to even mention synodality nor have they any plans for improving their approach to synodality after acknowledging publicly in their report their need to do so. This is more disturbing in light of paragraph #50 of the North American Continental Synod Document, wherein the bishops recognize their deficiencies, saying they are “recalculating how can we do the synodal process better.”
Pope Francis and the Synod office have now received the list of nominations from all seven Continental regions of those being proposed to participate in the General Assembly in Rome. Out of the twenty nominations from each region, the powers that be in this process will select ten members from each of the regions for a total of seventy lay people who will be invited to take part in the Synod in Rome this October. Over one hundred of us were on this call only to be told at the end that our Spirit-guided reflections, after being invited to participate, would not be included in their report on the grounds that we weren’t invited to participate by a bishop and there was no comparable group in Canada. In light of this, we request that one member who took part in the Region XVI gathering with the U.S. Conference of Bishops be chosen by someone who has the authority to be invited to participate outside of the nominations that came in from the bishops. More than 300 people have signed this letter supporting this request. After all, if the General Assembly in Rome is to be a genuine synod, it must have a fair and balanced representation of ALL the People of God.
