Synod Update: Irish Synod welcomes progress of universal Synod’s ten study groups
From: https://catholicnews.ie/irish-synodal-pathway-welcomes-progress-of-universal-synods-ten-study-groups/
19 Feb, 2025 | Church, News, Synod, World
Coordinators and secretaries of ten Study Groups, set up in March 2024 by Pope Francis following the First Session of the Sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October 2023, met to share progress on 18 February. The groups were tasked to research issues on the life and mission of the Church in a synodal perspective.
These ten themes that Pope Francis wished to be further explored, were:
- Some aspects of the relationship between the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Church. (SR 6)
- Listening to the Cry of the Poor (SR 4 and 16)
- The mission in the digital environment. (SR 17) 1 GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF THE SYNOD, For a Synodal Church. Communion, participation, mission. Preparatory Document (2021), n. 2. 2 SECRETARIAT GENERAL OF THE SYNOD, October 2024, 11 December 2023. 2
- The revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis in a missionary synodal perspective. (SR 11)
- Some theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms. (SR 8 and 9)
- The revision, in a synodal missionary perspective, of the documents touching on the relationship between Bishops, consecrated life, and ecclesial associations. (SR 10)
- Some aspects of the person and ministry of the Bishop (criteria for selecting candidates to Episcopacy, judicial function of the Bishops, nature and course of ad limina Apostolorum visits) from a missionary synodal perspective. (SR 12 and 13)
- The role of Papal Representatives in a missionary synodal perspective. (SR 13)
- Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues. (SR 15)
- The reception of the fruits of the ecumenical journey in ecclesial practices. (SR 7)
At their meeting this week, each coordinator presented the work of his or her group, dwelling in particular on the method used and the subjects (persons/organisations) involved; the timeframe envisaged for the delivery of the group’s report, and the difficulties encountered and open questions.
The Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Mario Grech, reminded the participants to take into account external contributions that may still arrive on synodus@synod.va, no later than 31 March 2025, to the General Secretariat. As it has been done to date, new contributions will be forwarded to the secretaries of the groups concerned.
In warmly welcoming the ongoing progress of the ten Study Groups, Julieann Moran, General Secretary of the Irish Synodal Pathway emphasised that, both their work, and the implementation of the initiatives and recommendations of the October 2024 Final Document of the Universal Synod, are essential expressions of our shared synodal journey.
Ms Moran said, “The Study Group meeting reaffirms the commitment, made during the universal synodal process, to walk together as a Church open to the Spirit: listening, discerning, and embracing co-responsibility for the life and mission of the Church together. I look forward to the final reports of these study groups, and the amplification of the collective wisdom of the People of God as we continue shaping our synodal journey into the future.”
ENDS
Can anyone else read that without wondering why they are bothering?
I had to check to be sure that ‘Some theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms. (SR 8 and 9)’ relates to (e.g.) the issue of changing canon law to give parish pastoral councils a mandatory role in parish administration – but should I truly be excited to learn that the working group for this is on track towards the June deadline for an actual result?
Isn’t that like being told that the Enniskerry bus from O’Connell Street has reached Stepaside – when even the safe arrival of the bus in Enniskerry will be a non-event if no one I want to meet is on it?
Search as I may I cannot find anywhere in this synodality progress report the slightest reflection of the single most important Catholic revelation in my lifetime – that the institutional Catholic clerical church was incapable of uncovering – BY ITSELF – the disease of silence on clerical sexual abuse. None of those ‘overseers’ officially tasked with the exemplary role of following Christ was able to do what Jesus himself would indubitably have done in those circumstances: blown the whistle – loudly – on this silence.
Had not the victims of this abuse, and those in the legal profession and the media who supported them, eventually blown that whistle there probably wouldn’t even have been a Francis papacy or a synodal process – but here we are, again, tasked with reading a report of a process that seems to be all about pretending that the failure of the clerical church to model Christ when it most mattered is of no great importance, that only minor canonical adjustments are needed now to ‘move on’.
As if! The theory of clerical leadership of the Catholic church – in the widest and most important sense of that term – has been totally shattered – because the Holy Spirit of Truth had to find other speakers of truth who were not ordained, and never will be. We have been taught by events that integrity is always what matters most – NOT ordination or any ‘evangelical counsels’.
Wake me up, someone, when there is a Vatican document that acknowledges that fact: top-down clerical authority in the church has collapsed.