Vatican Releases Key Synod Document – Instrumentum laboris - Answering Difficult Questions Arising in the Catholic Church
What is the Synod?
The Synod on Synodality is a three-year process of listening and dialogue beginning with a solemn opening in Rome on October 9 and 10, 2021 with each individual diocese and church celebrating the following week on October 17. The synodal process will conclude in 2024.
The Synod on Synodality is a three-year process of listening and dialogue beginning with a solemn opening in Rome on October 9 and 10, 2021 with each individual diocese and church celebrating the following week on October 17. The synodal process will conclude in 2024.
Who can participate to this Synod?
Pope Francis has stressed on several occasion the need for the Synod to involve everyone, and to reach out as much as possible. “Everyone has a part to play; no one is a mere extra … The Synod is for everyone, and it is meant to include everyone … Let everyone come in … the Holy Spirit needs us. Listen to him by listening to each other. Leave no one behind or excluded.” (Pope Francis, 18 September 2021).
All the baptised are explicitly invited to participate most especially within their local communities and no one is excluded. The Preparatory Document and the Vademecum have also stressed the importance of reaching out to the poor, to those who have less of a voice. This is also true of parishes, who must ensure that those people who might not normally attend meetings can be heard.
What is this synod, and how is it different?
In the past, a Synod consisted of a meeting (called a “General Assembly”) of Bishops in Rome. This Synod consists of the entire synod process, beginning with the worldwide consultation of all faithful, including a General Assembly of Bishops in Rome, and ending with the reception by the People of God in the local Churches of the fruits of the entire discernment process. Although previous synods also began with wide consultations in the form of questionnaires, this is the first time that everyone has been directly asked to engage in an exercise of listening at the level of parishes and dioceses.
Pope Francis has stressed on several occasion the need for the Synod to involve everyone, and to reach out as much as possible. “Everyone has a part to play; no one is a mere extra … The Synod is for everyone, and it is meant to include everyone … Let everyone come in … the Holy Spirit needs us. Listen to him by listening to each other. Leave no one behind or excluded.” (Pope Francis, 18 September 2021).
All the baptised are explicitly invited to participate most especially within their local communities and no one is excluded. The Preparatory Document and the Vademecum have also stressed the importance of reaching out to the poor, to those who have less of a voice. This is also true of parishes, who must ensure that those people who might not normally attend meetings can be heard.
What is this synod, and how is it different?
In the past, a Synod consisted of a meeting (called a “General Assembly”) of Bishops in Rome. This Synod consists of the entire synod process, beginning with the worldwide consultation of all faithful, including a General Assembly of Bishops in Rome, and ending with the reception by the People of God in the local Churches of the fruits of the entire discernment process. Although previous synods also began with wide consultations in the form of questionnaires, this is the first time that everyone has been directly asked to engage in an exercise of listening at the level of parishes and dioceses.
The document is about sixty pages that incorporates the experiences of local Churches in every region of the world – Churches that are experiencing wars, climate change, economic systems that produce “exploitation, inequality, and ‘waste’.” Churches whose faithful suffer martyrdom, in countries where they are minorities or where they are coming to terms “with an increasingly driven, and sometimes aggressive, secularisation.” Churches wounded by sexual abuse, or abuses of power and conscience,” whether economic and institutional – wounds that demand answers and “conversion.” Churches that are fearlessly confronting the challenges by engaging in the synodal discernment, without trying to “resolve them at all costs”: “Only in this way can these tensions become sources of energy and not lapse into destructive polarisations.”
The Instrumentum laboris brings together the experiences of dioceses around the world over the last two years, starting from 10 October 2021, when Pope Francis set in motion a journey to discern what steps to take “to grow as a synodal Church.” The Instrumentum laboris, therefore, is intended as an aid for discernment “during” the General Assembly, while at the same time serving as a means of preparation for participants as it looks ahead to the gathering. “Indeed, the purpose of the synodal process” the document states, repeating the words of the earlier Document for the Continental stage, “is not to produce documents but to open horizons of hope for the fulfilment of the Church’s mission.”
The Instrumentum laboris is composed of an explanatory text and fifteen worksheets that reveal a dynamic vision of the concept of “synodality.” Specifically, there are main sections:
The Instrumentum laboris brings together the experiences of dioceses around the world over the last two years, starting from 10 October 2021, when Pope Francis set in motion a journey to discern what steps to take “to grow as a synodal Church.” The Instrumentum laboris, therefore, is intended as an aid for discernment “during” the General Assembly, while at the same time serving as a means of preparation for participants as it looks ahead to the gathering. “Indeed, the purpose of the synodal process” the document states, repeating the words of the earlier Document for the Continental stage, “is not to produce documents but to open horizons of hope for the fulfilment of the Church’s mission.”
The Instrumentum laboris is composed of an explanatory text and fifteen worksheets that reveal a dynamic vision of the concept of “synodality.” Specifically, there are main sections:
Section A highlights the experience of the past two years and indicates a way forward to become an ever more synodal Church;
Section B – entitled “Communion, Mission, Participation” – focuses on the “three priority issues” at the heart of the work to be done in October 2023. These are elaborated in three main themes: Growing in communion by welcoming everyone, excluding no one; recognizing and valuing the contribution of every baptised person in view of mission; and identifying governance structures and dynamics through which to articulate participation and authority over time in a missionary synodal Church.
The texts of the speeches are available in the original language ( Cardinal Grech - Card Hollerich - Costa - Jeppesen - Lucas - Coppa).
“Rooted in this awareness,” the document affirms, “is the desire for a Church that is also increasingly synodal in its institutions, structures, and procedures.” It notes that a synodal Church is first and foremost a “Church of listening” and therefore “desires to be humble, and knows that it must ask forgiveness and has much to learn.” It continues, “The face of the Church today bears the signs of serious crises of mistrust and lack of credibility. In many contexts, crises related to sexual abuse, and abuse of power, money, and conscience have pushed the Church to undertake a demanding examination of conscience so that ‘moved by the Holy Spirit’ the Church ‘may never cease to renew herself’, in a journey of repentance and conversion that opens paths of reconciliation, healing, and justice.”
A synodal Church is also “a Church of encounter and dialogue” with believers of other religions and with other cultures and societies. It is a Church that “is not afraid of the variety it bears,” but on the contrary, “values it without forcing it into uniformity.” The Church is synodal when it is unceasingly nourished by the mystery it celebrates in the liturgy, during which it experiences everyday “radical unity” in the same prayer, in the midst of a “diversity” of languages and rites.
Other significant passages concern the question of authority (“Does authority arise as a form of power derived from the models offered by the world, or is it rooted in service?” is one of the questions); the need for “integral formation, initial and ongoing” for the People of God; as well as the need for “a similar effort” aimed at the renewal of the language used in the “liturgy, preaching, catechesis, sacred art, as well as in all forms of communication addressed to the Faithful and the wider public, including through new or traditional forms of media.” The renewal of language, the text states, must “aim to make these riches accessible and attractive to the men and women of our time, rather than an obstacle that keeps them at a distance.”
See More Official Synod Documents: https://www.synod.va/en/resources/official-documents.html
The texts of the speeches are available in the original language ( Cardinal Grech - Card Hollerich - Costa - Jeppesen - Lucas - Coppa).
“Rooted in this awareness,” the document affirms, “is the desire for a Church that is also increasingly synodal in its institutions, structures, and procedures.” It notes that a synodal Church is first and foremost a “Church of listening” and therefore “desires to be humble, and knows that it must ask forgiveness and has much to learn.” It continues, “The face of the Church today bears the signs of serious crises of mistrust and lack of credibility. In many contexts, crises related to sexual abuse, and abuse of power, money, and conscience have pushed the Church to undertake a demanding examination of conscience so that ‘moved by the Holy Spirit’ the Church ‘may never cease to renew herself’, in a journey of repentance and conversion that opens paths of reconciliation, healing, and justice.”
A synodal Church is also “a Church of encounter and dialogue” with believers of other religions and with other cultures and societies. It is a Church that “is not afraid of the variety it bears,” but on the contrary, “values it without forcing it into uniformity.” The Church is synodal when it is unceasingly nourished by the mystery it celebrates in the liturgy, during which it experiences everyday “radical unity” in the same prayer, in the midst of a “diversity” of languages and rites.
Other significant passages concern the question of authority (“Does authority arise as a form of power derived from the models offered by the world, or is it rooted in service?” is one of the questions); the need for “integral formation, initial and ongoing” for the People of God; as well as the need for “a similar effort” aimed at the renewal of the language used in the “liturgy, preaching, catechesis, sacred art, as well as in all forms of communication addressed to the Faithful and the wider public, including through new or traditional forms of media.” The renewal of language, the text states, must “aim to make these riches accessible and attractive to the men and women of our time, rather than an obstacle that keeps them at a distance.”
See More Official Synod Documents: https://www.synod.va/en/resources/official-documents.html
Sources: Vatican News - Official Synod Website - www.synod.va
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