Vatican issues Synod guide document
Instrumentum Laboris will focus on the character of the Synodal Church
The Vatican’s synod office published the Instrumentem laboris for the second Rome meeting of the Synod on Synodality in October, focusing on the character of a synodal Church rather than any of the specific topics which attracted controversy during the first session in October 2023.
This year’s document, issued on 9 July, asked how “the identity of the synodal People of God in mission [can] take concrete form in the relationships, paths and places where the everyday life of the Church takes place”.
It said that while the 2023 session responded to the question “How does a synodal Church describe itself?”, the second session would consider “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
Other questions raised by last year’s meeting – including the “matters of consideration” on which delegates did not agree – would be addressed “at the level of the local Churches as well as the ten study groups” formed in February, it said, rather than at the second session of the Synod. The document noted, for example, that one study group would contribute to the “maturation” of the question of the ordination of women to the diaconate.
“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,” the document said.
The sections of the document, which will be the subject for delegates’ prayers and discussion, comprised an outline of “the foundations of a vision of a missionary synodal Church”, and then three parts: “relations”, “pathways” and “places”.
“Synodality is not an end in itself,” the document said, but by valuing “all the charisms, vocations and ministries in the Church” it makes it possible “to proclaim the Gospel in the most appropriate way to women and men of every place and time”.
The outline of “foundations” emphasised the importance of unity and relationships, particularly “at times now dominated by the crisis of participation, the absence of a sense that we have a common destiny, and a too-often individualistic concept of happiness and, therefore, of salvation”.
This provided the basis for its discussion of “the possibilities of participation and the exercise of co-responsibility by all the baptised, men and women, in the variety of their charisms, vocations and ministries”. These were also the terms in which it addressed the role of women in the Church and the need “to better honour this reciprocity of relations in all spheres of the Church’s life”.
The section on “relations” considered Christian initiation and the significance of the priesthood of all the baptised in relation to ordained ministry. “Within the framework of promoting baptismal charisms and ministries, a reallocation of tasks whose performance does not require the sacrament of orders can be initiated,” it said.
Under “pathways”, the document discussed formation, both for the laity and in seminaries, and decision-making, denying any “opposition between consultation and deliberation” in the relationship between people and hierarchy.
It also noted emphasised the need for “accountability of authority to the community”, saying this had been made more urgent by the Church’s “loss of credibility due to financial scandals and, even more so, sexual abuse and other abuses of minors and vulnerable persons”.
The third section, on “places”, considered the diversity of “ecclesial realities”, including the growth of urbanisation and of digital culture. It called too for “concrete structures and practices” to express the Church’s unity across the many differences between its constituent parts.
The document took as its text the “banquet for all peoples” described in Isaiah 25:6-7, representing “the convivial sociality of differences”.
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