Since the first of the year, CCRI has been facilitating monthly synodal gatherings for all who have no other way to participate. These are the coming synodal gatherings to be held in March:
- Synodal gathering, 1st Saturday of every month next on March 2, 2024
- Women’s Synodal gathering, every other Monday next on March 4, 2024
- Young Adult Seekers Community, every other Thursday on March 7
- Synodal gathering, 2nd Friday of every month, next on March 8 (specially set up for Australians and New Zelanders) but all are welcome.
- Synodal gathering, 2nd Saturday of every month next on March 9, 2024
- Synodal gathering, 3rd Wednesday of every month, next on March 20, 2024
- GESC presentation by Helena Jeppesen, delegate to the Synod, March 23, 2024
You are welcome to join us to participate in a Synod. To find the times for you in your locale, click on our universal calendar.
Presentation by Dr. John Wijngaards of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research
He spoke to our Global Ecclesial Synodal Council on our two-fold Church: Church as People of God and Church as Institution. To listen to the recording or read the summary.
Listen to the recording Passcode: !W83XwMX
Preparing for the 2024 Synod
The work of the Synod on synodality continues in view of the final session set for October 2024, and Churches are now called to reflect on the Synthesis Report published in October 2023, to promote further consultation, and to prepare contributions for next year’s assembly.
Bishops from across the world have received a document with instructions from the Secretariat of the Synod accompanied by a letter from Cardinals Mario Grech (the General Secretary) and Jean-Claude Hollerich (the Relator General). The four-page text focuses on the fundamental question of how to be a synodal Church in mission, with the aim to identify the paths to follow and the tools to adopt to “enhance the unique contribution of each baptized person and of each Church in the one mission of proclaiming the Risen Lord and his Gospel to the world today.”
As the document clarifies, the process must be “a reflection on the concrete forms of the missionary commitment to which we are called, that express the dynamism between unity and diversity proper to a synodal Church so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.
Newly Released Guidelines
According to the newly released instructions, this guiding question needs to be addressed on two levels, “always having as its reference point the Synthesis Report as a whole.”
At a local level, the questions will be:
- how can Churches enhance diversified “co-responsibility” in the mission of all the members of the People of God; how structures, processes of discernment, and decision-making processes related to the mission can enable to shape and promote co-responsibility;
- what ministries and participatory bodies can be renewed or introduced to better express this co-responsibility.
The following chapters from the Synthesis Report are relevant to the reflection questions above:
Chapter 8: Church in Mission
Chapter 9: Women in the Life and Mission of the Church
Chapter 10: Consecrated Life and Lay Association and Movements
Chapter 11: Deacons and Priests in a Synodal Church
Chapter 12: The Bishop in Synodal Communion
Chapter 16: Towards a Listening and Accompanying Church
Chapter 18: Structures for Participation
Not starting from scratch
The document explains that this work will not start from scratch and, therefore, will not involve repeating the process of listening and consultation undertaken during the first 2021-2023 stage. After collecting all contributions, the Episcopal Conferences will be tasked with drawing up a summary of a maximum length of 8 pages, to be sent to the Genera Secretariat of the Synod by 15 May 2024. On the basis of the material thus gathered, the Instrumentum laboris, the Synod’s Working Document will be drafted.
Contributions to be presented by 15 May 2024
Send your reports no more than 8 pages to your local Episcopal Conference and also directly to the Synod Office in Rome:
Sr. Nathalie Becquart <n.becquart@synod.va>
Cardinal Mario Grech <bishopmgrech@gmail.com>
Office <synodus@synod.va>
Start a synod of your own or join us to participate in one
It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that the issues that deeply concern us will be included in the working document for the 2024 Synod. We can no longer just talk about needed change in our Church. We now have the opportunity to do something about it. To prepare for this, we encourage you to call a few people together and begin small synodal gatherings of your own. There are many things you can accomplish by bringing people together.
We have received guidelines from the Synod office in Rome that will help lead members of local dioceses, parishes, and Small Christian Communities (SCCs) through the process of setting up synodal gatherings. There we asked to call on the Spirit to open our minds and hearts as we share the important issues that we believe will help transform the Church into the kind of community that Jesus would want in today’s world. Click here to read these guidelines. As the People of God co-responsible for our Church communities, speak up to let your bishop or pastor to let him know that you want to have such a synodal gathering and that you want to be a part of it.
Speaking of the 2023 Synod report, undersecretary Sister Nathalie Becquart, XMCJ said: “The synthesis report creates a roadmap for discussion to take place around the world over the next eleven months. That report also has many concrete proposals and some of them can already be implemented. You don’t have to wait for change to come from Rome.” This statement coming directly from the Synod office is most encouraging. If we need not wait for Rome but can begin some aspects of the synod in our own communities, let’s not wait. It is as simple as calling a few people you know who’d be interested in seeing the Catholic Church brought into the modern world. Call on all kinds of people – active members of your parish, people who have long since given up on the Church and dropped out, members of other religious denominations, call on everyone.
Use your time gathered with others to discern (1) what you can implement in your own community and begin making plans; (2) what are the issues that you feel deeply about that you want to have included in the working document and be discussed at the 2024 Synod. Click here for a few guiding steps to help you begin your own small synodal gathering. To prepare, here is the English translation of synthesis report of the 2023 Synod. Following the guidelines offered from the Synod office, you may want to focus on key parts of this report or do so in more than one session. Spread the word that you are bringing a small group together. Many are unaware that a consequential synod has even taken place. Refer often to our CCRI website www.CatholicChurchReformIntl.org to stay up on Synod news and events.
Your donations are most appreciated
YOUR GIFT – IN ANY AMOUNT – IS PRICELESS
When you make a donation to support our cause, you join with others who are investing in restoring our Church to what Jesus intended. If you are part of the movement to stop contributing to your local parish and/or diocese, you may want to take advantage of the end-of-year tax deductions by contributing to CCRI in its stead. The dollars we receive are used to run our programs and to reach a broad spectrum of the People of God. We are focused on reaching out to the Faithful, reform activists, young adults as well as those who feel abandoned by the Church, to mention just a few. Your personal contributions in offering your suggestions and your donations are most appreciated.
To remain silent is to be complicit with our Church as it is now. If we do nothing, nothing is likely to happen. But if each of us is willing to do something, join a synodal gathering or start one of your own with a few close friends. Remember, where two or three are gathered in His name, there God is in the midst of them. Let’s all do our part to step out of the pews, to come together and speak. But none of us can do this alone. We need to join our voices together and be a synodal Church to stay abreast of what is happening with each stage of the Synod from now through 2024. Becoming a synodal Church will only happen if we, the People of God, stay involved in the process.
On behalf of the CCRI steering committee,
Rene Reid
CCRI director