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8 Gulf Pine Catholic • July 19, 2024 Synod document seeks responses to welcoming, serving everyone BY CAROL GLATZ Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY ( CNS ) -- The working document for the October assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality has called for responses to how all the baptized can better serve the Catholic Church and help heal humanity’s “deepest wounds.” The document said the synod should spur the church to become a “refuge” and “shelter” for those in need or distress, and encourage Catholics to “allow themselves to be led by the Spirit of the Lord to horizons that they had not previously glimpsed” as brothers and sis- ters in Christ. “This is the ongoing conversion of the way of being the Church that the synodal process invites us to undertake,” the document said. The 30-page document, called an “instru- mentum laboris,” was released at the Vatican July 9. It will serve as a discussion guideline for the synod’s second session Oct. 2-27, which will reflect on the theme: “How to be a missionary synodal Church.” The reflections are the next step in the synod’s overarching theme: “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission.” “In an age marked by increasing inequalities, growing disillusionment with traditional models of governance, democratic disenchantment and the dominance of the market model in human interac- tions, and the temptation to resolve conflicts by force rather than dialogue,” the church’s synodal style could offer inspiration and important insights for the future of humanity, the working document said. Two key challenges facing the church are “the growing isolation of people and cultural individual- ism, which even the Church has often absorbed,” it said, and “an exaggerated social communitarianism that suffocates people and does not allow them to be free subjects of their own development.” Synodal practice, however, “calls us to mutual care, interdependence and co-responsibility for the common good,” it said, and it is willing to listen to everyone, in contrast to methods “in which the con- centration of power shuts out the voices of the poor- est, the marginalized and minorities.” In fact, “weakness in reciprocity, participation and communion remains an obstacle to a full renew- al of the Church in a missionary synodal sense,” it added. The document strongly encouraged the “renewal of liturgical and sacramental life, starting with litur- gical celebrations that are beautiful, dignified, acces- sible, fully participative, well-inculturated and capa- ble of nourishing the impulse towards mission.” And it called for renewing “the proclamation and transmission of the faith in ways and means appro- priate to the current context.” While the second session will focus on certain aspects of synodal life, “with a view to greater effec- tiveness in mission,” it said “other questions that emerged during the journey are the subject of work that continues in other ways, at the level of the local Churches as well as in the ten study groups.” In March, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-gen- eral of the Synod of Bishops, announced that Pope Francis had decided that some of the most contro- versial issues raised during the 2021-24 synod pro- cess would be examined by study groups. Among the subjects assigned to the ten groups are the possi- ble revision of guidelines for the training of priests and deacons, the role of women in the church and their participation in decision-making/tak- ing processes and com- munity leadership, a possible revision in the way bishops are chosen and a revision of norms for the relationship between bishops and the religious orders working in their dioces- es. The study groups “will complete their in-depth study by June 2025, if possible, but will offer a progress report to the synod assembly in October 2024,” the document said. “Ahead of the conclusion of the second session, Pope Francis has already accepted some of the requests of the first session and begun the work of implementation,” it said. A canon law commission has been set up to serve the synod, it said, and a “theological subsidy” will soon be published to help par- ticipants read and better understand the many “theological notions and categories used” in the newly released synod working document. The work of the second session, the docu- ment said, will continue the synodal method of “prayer, exchange and discernment” as participants are invited to look at “the mis- sionary synodal life of the Church from dif- ferent perspectives” by reflecting on three aspects which emerged from previous discus- sions: relationships within the church, path- ways for formation and places of connection. “On this basis, a final document relating to the whole process will be drafted and will offer the pope proposals on steps that could be taken,” it said. “We can expect a further deepening of the shared understanding of synodality, a better focus on the practices of a synodal Church, and the proposal of some changes in canon law -- there may be yet more significant and profound developments as the basic proposal is further assimilated and lived,” it said. The document, based on the results of the first session presented in the synthesis report and on fur- ther consultation with local churches, parish priests and others, listed a number of shared proposals and concerns that should be addressed at the second ses- sion: SEE VATICAN SYNOD WORKING DOCUMENT, PAGE 11 This is the official logo for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. CNS photo/courtesy Synod of Bishops