Synod of Bishops

Ralf van Bühren Raum, Kunst und Liturgie Praktische Auswirkungen der Liturgiereform auf den Kirchenbau nach dem Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil Weisungen des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils über Kunst und Künstler Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil (1962-1965) gilt in der modernen Kirchen geschichte als epochales Großereignis, obwohl 50 Jahre in historischer Hinsicht ein kurzer Zeitraum sind. Über die journalistische Berichterstattung wurde der Konzilsverlauf von einer weltweiten Öffentlichkeit aufmerksam verfolgt, auch außerkirchlich. Die hohe Zahl von 2.000 bis 2.500 Bischöfen aus aller Welt, die stimm berechtigt teilnahmen, ließ einen gesamtkirchlichen Charakter der Kon zilsdekrete erwarten. In ihren Arbeitssitzungen diskutierten die Konzilsväter über Grundfragen zu Glaube, Leben und Disziplin der katholischen Kirche, nicht zuletzt über die ökumenische Bemühung für die Einheit der Christen. 1 Der Blick einzig auf die Konzilsversammlung genügt allerdings nicht, um die Bedeutung des Zweiten Vatikanums beurteilen zu können. Es bedarf zudem ei ner Interpretation und Wertung der sechzehn Konzilstexte mit ihrer Rezeption im kirchlichen Leben. Dabei verdeutlicht der Gesamtblick auf alle Dokumente, wie sehr sich die Konzilstexte in wichtigen Punkten bestätigen und einander er gänzen, was bezeugt, dass die Beschlüsse aller vier konziliaren Tagungsperioden als inte grale Ganzheit zu lesen sind. 2 Dies gilt auch für die Konzilsaussagen über

Pope Francis believes that the Church of the third millennium must be Synodal, an ‘inverted pyramid.’ This prophetic and courageous step in Church reform by Pope Francis is in close continuity with the ancient and rich synodal tradition of the Early Church and the unfinished agenda of the Second Vatican Council. In a hierarchical Church the Pope and Bishops are privileged listeners to the Holy Spirit and are mandated to teach the people of God, whereas in the sSynodal church the magisterium listens to the Holy Spirit speaking to them through the people of God (LG 12) as well and, thus, includes a two-way process of common listening to the Spirit and communal discernment (sensus fidei) by the entire people of God who journey together to evangelize and bring about the Kingdom of God.  It is a revolutionary move towards de-centralisation of the Catholic church which opens up fresh questions about the role of pope and papal primacy, the juridical status of the local and regional bishops’ conferences and the participation of the laity, especially women, in doctrinal formulation and ecclesiastical administration. In this article, I seek to outline and explain Pope Francis’ vision of a synodal church on the basis his own teachings.

Keywords: Catholic Church; Church Governance; Collegiality; Communion; Ecclesiology; Hierarchy; Listening Church; Papal Primacy; Pope Francis, Sensus Fidei; Synodal Church; Synodality

This paper illustrates how the key elements of the emerging synodal Church are oriented to transformation, and how this transformation is effective at the three levels of ecclesial life as individual, community, and universal Church.
Several themes are emerging as foundational to the task of building a synodal Church. This paper focusses upon three in order to demonstrate synodality as commitment to transformation: journeying, bridge-building, and responsibility.
This paper employs the theology of Bernard Lonergan and the Transcendental Method of intentional consciousness as the most appropriate means of engaging with synodality and its demands upon philosophical and theological thinking. Concrete examples of the paradigm of synodality at work in the life of the contemporary Church are drawn from recent diocesan synods in the USA, and from the words and actions of Pope Francis. These are also instructive for Australia’s Plenary Council in 2021-2022.

The Church has been convoked to a Synod with the motto: For a Synodal Church: communion, participation and mis- sion. It is perhaps the most important event since the Sec- ond Vatican Council, because it represents the beginning of a process of rearticulation of the conciliar hermeneutics in the light of a new reception of the Ecclesiology of the People of God. The aim is to situate Chapter II [People of God] of Lumen Gentium as the normative criterion that redefines the identity and mission of all ecclesial subjects, and consequently the relationships, the communicative dynamics and the structures for a synodal Church whose challenge is to achieve a new theological institutional model for the third millennium.

The nine AMECEA Countries participated in the III Extraordinary World Synod of Bishops on "The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization" in Rome from 5-19 October, 2014. In Eastern Africa Small Christian Communities (SCCs) were part of the consultation process and answered 11 of the 39 questions in the poll. Research on the 180,000 SCCs in Eastern Africa reveals that SCCs elect lay ministers/animators/coordinators for specific groups such as couples (married and engaged), youth and children and for specific pastoral ministries such as Catechesis, Justice and Peace, Religious Education, Sacraments and Spiritual/Religious Formation. A SCC is a communion of families. The SCC is an important support group for families and promotes a family culture. The SCC is both a place and a path for the pastoral care and evangelization of families and marriages. This praxis of SCCs in Africa is contributing to the development of the theology of the Church as Family of God.

      Now SCCs in the AMECEA Region are preparing for the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the "The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and in the Contemporary  World" to take place in Rome from 4-25 October, 2015 The meeting will ”seek working guidelines in the pastoral care of the person and the family.” We are challenged to continue to explore how SCC members and others can accompany families and couples who are wounded. This is the Ministry of Compassionate Accompaniment. This is part of the imperative for all Catholics to go to the margins of society to serve the poor, migrants and those without hope. Pope Francis also emphasizes the importance of welcoming, listening to and accompanying young people today.

        After the October, 2015 Synod of Bishops itself there will be an ongoing process involving collegiality and subsidiarity. There will be follow-up meetings and various commissions related to pastoral solutions to the challenges of family and marriage. Ongoing discussion and decision-making will take place on the local level through national episcopal conferences. Pope Francis is expected to issue a Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation with an ongoing plan of action that includes concrete pastoral solutions. SCCs help to promote this family and marriage ministry.

Una riflessione sul testo chiave di Papa Francesco sulla sinodalità nell’ultimo sinodo dei vescovi : il discorso di Papa Francesco per il 50° anniversario dell’istituzione del Sinodo dei Vescovi, Sala Paolo VI, sabato 17 ottobre 2015, durante il Sinodo dei Vescovi sulla Famiglia. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/speeches/2015/october/documents/papafrancesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html.
Nathalie Becquart, Uditrice al Sinodo dei giovani e coordinatrice generale del pre-Sinodo (già direttore del Servizio nazionale per l’evangelizzazione dei giovani e delle vocazioni), Consultore della Segreteria Generale del Sinodo dei Vescovi.

In October 2018 the assembly of the Synod of Bishops on “Young people, Faith and Vocational Discernment” took place in Rome gathering 267 synodal fathers, 49 observers and 23 experts under the Presidency of Pope Francis. Reflecting on the synodal preparation process, on the synod documents, and the synod event in the light of the documents of Vatican
II (especially Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes), this paper in tribute to Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri hopes to demonstrate how the Synod on Youth was a meaningful act of reception of Vatican II, and maybe a turning point in this process of reception of the Council.

Catholic priests need to embrace synodality and help promote shared responsibility for the Church among all the baptized. Entrusting responsibility to all the baptized in the life and mission of the Church is still too dependent -- for the moment -- on the commitment of a few, the priests.

“Questions of power and its exercise in the Church are real and need to be resolved, but we must not let them become a distraction from the more fundamental questions of truth, fidelity, and apostolic mission, to which all authority in the Church is ordered.”

(Introduction)

1. The Experience of Pope Leo and his teachings on synods and councils
1.1 Leo as Peter's heir
1.2. Leo's leadership

2. The Synodal Way: nature and goals
2.1. How the Synodal Way began
2.2 The Synodal Way's constitution and membership

3. Comparison
3.1 Vatican II as mediator between Pope Leo and the present day
3.2 The Church and the world

Conclusion

La vocation, une notion floue et mal comprise par beaucoup Pour avoir eu la joie d'intervenir à plusieurs occasions sur la question de la vocation auprès de responsables et professeurs de l'enseignement catholique français ces dernières années, j'ai pu constater à quel point cette notion de vocation est perçue et reçue de manière très diverse. Celui qui a l'occasion d'écouter les jeunes, mais aussi les éducateurs, sur ce sujet sait à quel point ce mot « vocation » a des connotations variées, généralement négatives et parfois positives. D'une manière générale, ce mot de vocation reste flou pour beaucoup. Il est même souvent un mot qui fait peur ! Dans notre contexte français, mais aussi en bien des pays, ce mot-phare de la religion chrétienne s'est sécularisé et est devenu polysémique. Si vous tapez vocation sur Google vous verrez ainsi apparaître des articles comme « crise de vocation chez les pompiers », « nous n'avons pas vocation à jouer les pirates ! », « une équipe de foot avec des joueurs à vocation offensive ! » « G7, la France a retrouvé le rôle clé qui est sa vocation »… Pour certains la vocation fait d'abord référence au choix d'un métier. On parle ainsi de vocation de professeur, de vocation de médecin ou encore de vocation artistique. Pour d'autres, en particulier pour de nombreux chrétiens, la vocation ne concernerait que les prêtres et les consacrés. Pour la majorité des personnes, ce mot peu clair est donc appréhendé, sans qu'elles en aient conscience, d'une manière très réductrice. Tel est d'ailleurs le constat dressé lors de la consultation préparatoire au synode des évêques sur « les jeunes, la foi et le * Nathalie Becquart est religieuse Xavière, consulteur pour le Secrétariat général du Synode des Evêques. Ancienne Directrice du Service national pour l'Evangélisation des Jeunes et pour les Vocations, elle a été coordinatrice générale du pré-synode des jeunes et auditrice au synode des évêques sur « les jeunes, la foi et le discernement vocationnel »

This essay argues for a participatory synodal Church and the possible contributions of the African palaver as a model for participatory dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church. The African palaver is the art of conversation, dialogue, and consensusbuilding in traditional society that can be appropriated in the current search for a more inclusive and expansive participatory dialogue at all levels of the life of the Church. I will develop this essay first by briefly exploring some theological developments on synodality between the Second Vatican Council and Pope Francis and some of the contributions of the reforms of Pope Francis to synodality in the Church. Secondly, I will identify how the African palaver functions through examples taken from two African ethnic groups. I will proceed to show how the African palaver could enter into dialogue with other new approaches to participatory dialogue for a synodal Church.

Im Rahmen der Bestandsaufnahme, in welchen Bereichen die Kirche auf ihren verschiedenen Ebenen synodale Elemente aufweist, und des Weiterdenkens, wie sich diese im Licht des Synodalitätsparadigmas weiterentwickeln lassen, ist mir die Aufgabe zugefallen, die Synodalität auf der Ebene der Pfarrei zu bedenken. Das will ich in drei Schritten tun: 1. Ich möchte erstens das gegenwärtige Anliegen einer synodalen Gestaltung von Kirche, das mit einem dreifachen Synodalitätsbegriff-Synodalität als Stil, als Struktur und als Ereignisargumentiert, nachvollziehen. 2. Ich werde zweitens diese dreifache Synodalität auf der Ebene der Pfarrei wiederzuentdecken versuchen. 3. Ich werde anschließend, drittens, einige Beobachtungen zusammentragen, inwieweit ich gerade auf der Ebene der Pfarrei in der Verknüpfung und Interdependenz von Synodalität als Stil, Struktur und Ereignis Problemlagen identifiziere, die ich als dem synodalen Anliegen abträglich bewerte.

Questo articolo esamina la dimensione ecumenica dell'esortazione apostolica Amoris Laetitia di papa Francesco, mostrando come dipenda anche dagli interventi degli osservatori cristiani non-cattolici al Sinodo sulla famiglia. Questi interventi hanno messo in evidenza le ricchezze della riflessione ecumenica sul matrimonio che costituisce un elemento rilevante nel dialogo ecumenico da anni. La lettura ecumenica della Amoris Laetitia e la sua recezione pone l'attenzione sull'importanza della relazione tra grazia e matrimonio, il ruolo del matrimonio nell'evangelizzazione del XXI secolo e la natura dei matrimoni misti per la vita quotidiana e per la riflessione teologica della Chiesa Cattolica. 

This article examines the ecumenical dimension of Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, showing how it also depends on the interventions of non-Catholic Christian observers at the Synod on the Family. These interventions pointed out the riches of the ecumenical reflection on marriage that has been an important element in the ecumenical dialogue for years. The ecumenical reading of Amoris Laetitia and its reception focus the importance of the relationship between grace and marriage, the role of marriage in the evangelization in the 21st

The contemporary Catholic Church is experiencing a breakthrough into a fuller stage of self-understanding, and of self-appropriation as the Body of Christ, known as 'synodality'. It is an opening to the possibility of a new experience of transformation on all levels of being Church. Synodality is being promoted and provoked by the papacy of Pope Francis, which has been accompanied by the progressive uncovering of sexual abuse within the Church, prevalent and deeply wounding. Both synodality and the scandal of abuse demand the transformation of all members, processes and structures of the Church.

Per indagare le dinamiche di formazione dell’opinione pubblica sulla Chiesa cattolica italiana occorre applicare le teorie classiche tenendo presente il nuovo scenario informativo e comunicativo costituito dall’infosfera e caratterizzato dall’esistenza onlife. In tal modo si può comprendere come le informazioni sulla Chiesa diventano un argomento di discussione pubblica e qual è il ruolo giocato dagli opinion leader, oppure si può osservare che esse rimangono confinate nella sfera privata a causa dei pregiudizi e del clima d’opinione presente nella società.
Questo volume può essere un utile strumento da impiegare nell'attuale cammino sinodale della Chiesa.

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To investigate the dynamics of the formation of public opinion on the Catholic Church, it is necessary to apply the classical theories bearing in mind the new informative and communicative scenario constituted by the infosphere and characterized by onlife existence.
In this way we can understand how information about the Church becomes a topic of public discussion and what is the role played by opinion leaders, or it can be observed that they remain confined to the private sphere due to prejudices and the climate of opinion present in the society.
This book can be a useful tool to be used in the current synodal journey of the Church.

The Fifteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, held in October 2018 with the theme “Young People, Faith, and Vocational Discernment,” was truly a profound experience of “walking together” under the guidance of the Spirit. Through a process including two years of preparation with local consultations and a Pre-Synod with three hundred youth from all over the world, the church has been deeply listening to the young adults between the ages of sixteen and twenty-nine. Thus the church has understood clearly how synodality is truly a key to the proclamation and transmission of the faith today.
Final published article to be uploaded here https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/VFSBTQU7WZFKVFFIH26X/full

Recent research has addressed the problem of the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Synod of Ancyra, but has not dealt directly with the theology of similarity, which is not identical to the theology of the image, although it is close to it. The Synod focused on the similarity of the Son in God's inner Trinitarian life, claiming that the Son is similar to the Father κατ' οὐσίαν. It also mentioned the Son's similarity to us. However, it did not take up the subject of the similarity between man and God or between man and man. The article shows the biblical basis of the synodal theology of similarity and its basic propositions. The difficult expression κατ' οὐσίαν, defining the similarity of the Son to the Father, is the key to the understanding of the synodal theology. It means the similarity of a person to a person and the unity of persons on the level of substance.

The issue of vocational discernment was reflected upon during the 15th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops convened in October 2018. The article deals with the topics of responsibility for each Christian discerning his/her own life vocation. In the light of the preparatory documents for the synod and the final document of the synod, the criteria for responsible vocational discernment will be presented.

My analysis on the category of signs of times (SoT) shows how it can help to explain a few aspects of synodality. I will explain how synodality and SoT support each other and why Synods should teach a correct judgment of SoT. It is a way to educate God's people to their theology. We may also wonder if in the anti-gender campaign the church was unable to implement the theological vision implied in the SoT. This campaign has highlighted the Church weakness in accepting the world-church relations implied in SoT theology. This weakness due to a lack in education must be corrected re-launching the Synods' tasks and processes.