Women deacons, LGBT issues not on the agenda for October’s synod meeting
Cardinal
Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, speaks during a
news conference at the Vatican Sept. 16, 2024, to present the calendar
and list of participants for the second session of the ongoing Synod of
Bishops. (CNS photo/Pablo Esparza)Hot-button issues like women deacons and ministry to L.G.B.T. Catholics are not on the agenda for the second and final session of the Synod on Synodality, which will open at the Vatican on Oct. 2 and close on Oct. 27. They are instead being discussed in 10 study groups established by Pope Francis this past February.
The central theme for discussion and discernment at the synod by the 368 voting participants from six continents, of whom 272 are bishops and 96 non-bishops, including 54 women, is: “How to be a synodal church in mission?”
Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary general of the synod, and Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich, the relator general of the synod, provided these details and more at a press conference in the Vatican today, Sept. 15.
“The synod is a time of prayer; it is not a convention,” Cardinal Grech told members of the media. “It is an ecclesial assembly that prays, listens to the word of God in the Scriptures and seeks to see what the Spirit is saying to the heart of believers.” He recalled that Pope Francis has repeatedly said, “The Holy Spirit is the protagonist at the synod.”
For this reason, he said, the second session, like the first, will begin with a spiritual retreat, this time a two-day retreat in the Vatican given by the former master of the Dominicans, Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., and Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, O.S.B., abbess of a Benedictine abbey in Viboldone, near Milan. In addition, there will be a one-day retreat on Monday, Oct. 21, the beginning of the last week of the synod, during which the draft of the final document will be presented. The aim is to encourage participants to read and respond to this text from a reflective spiritual perspective.
The two-day retreat will conclude with a penitential vigil on the evening of Oct. 1 in St. Peter’s Basilica. The liturgy will include time to listen to the testimonies of three people: one who suffered from the sin of abuse, one from the sin of war and third from the sin of indifference to the plight of migrants, according to a Vatican statement announcing the liturgy.
Afterward, “the confession of a number of sins will take place,” said the statement, released Sept. 16. “The aim is not to denounce the sin of others, but to acknowledge oneself as a member of those who, by omission or action, become the cause of suffering and responsible for the evil inflicted on the innocent and defenseless.”
According to the Vatican, the sins confessed will include: sins against peace; sins against creation, sins against Indigenous populations and migrants; the sin of abuse; sins against women, family and youth; the sin of “using doctrine as stones to be hurled”; sins against poverty; and sins against synodality or the lack of listening and communion.
The liturgy is open to all but is specifically geared toward young people, as it “directs the Church’s inner gaze to the faces of new generations,” the Vatican said.
Cardinal Grech also announced that on the evening of Friday, Oct. 11, Pope Francis will lead an ecumenical prayer vigil in commemoration of the opening of the Second Vatican Council 62 years ago on that day in 1962. It will be held in the Piazza dei Protomartiri, near St. Peter’s Basilica, the place where according to long-standing tradition St. Peter was crucified. Francis has long said he sees the synod as an implementation and development of that council’s teaching on the church.
Cardinal Hollerich, for his part, reported that there will be 368 participants at the synod, mostly the same people who attended the first session. (Only 26 persons have changed, some for reasons of health.) Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore will replace New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan on the U.S. delegation of bishops. Roughly 25 percent of the participants are not bishops. There will be 16 “fraternal delegates” from other Christian churches, compared to 12 at the first session.
The list of the fraternal delegates does not include any members of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian war against Ukraine appears to have somewhat upended the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church, which has supported the war, and Rome, though Metropolitan Antonij, the second-highest-ranking prelate of the Patriarchate of Moscow, visited Pope Francis at the Vatican over the summer.
At yesterday’s Vatican press conference, Giacomo Costa, S.J., one of the two special secretaries of the synod, explained that the same method of “conversation in the Spirit” used last October will be used at the second session. Participants will again be divided into language groups of 10 or 11 persons.
Msgr. Riccardo Bettocchio, the other special secretary, announced that one of the novelties at this session is that there will be four “theological-pastoral forums” at which important topics will be presented not only to the participants at the synod but also to journalists who will be allowed to participate and raise questions.
The first two forums will be held on the evening of Oct. 9, at the same time but in different venues. One will focus on “The People of God subject of mission,” and the other on “The role and authority of the bishop in a synodal church.”
The second two forums will be held on the evening of Oct. 16, again simultaneously but in different venues. The first will focus on “The mutual relation: local church—universal church.” The second will focus on “The exercise of the primacy and the synod of bishops.”
Study groups
At the press conference, Cardinal Grech was asked how the 10 study groups are linked to the synod assembly, and whether the issues being discussed in those groups could also be raised at the synod. He explained that Pope Francis “has already accepted those topics; he has not discarded them. They are to be studied in-depth.” The groups will report to the synod on what they have done so far, and the final results will be presented to the pope by June 25 of next year, if possible. Cardinal Grech made clear that there is no point in returning to these topics during this October’s session, since they were already discussed at the first session and are now being studied in-depth.
On March 14 of this year, Pope Francis sent a letter to Cardinal Grech in which he indicated that the central theme for this final session of the synod is to be: “How to be a synodal church in mission?” At the same time, he recognized that the synthesis report “enumerates many important theological issues, all of which are to varying degrees related to the synodal renewal of the Church and [are] not without juridical and pastoral repercussions.” He wrote, “These issues, by their very nature, require in-depth study.” He indicated 10 themes that are to be examined in-depth by the study groups in collaboration with the dicasteries of the Roman Curia.
The 10 themes are:
1) Some aspects of the relationship between the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Church (Synthesis Report, No. 6);
2) Listening to the cry of the poor (Nos. 4 and 16);
3) The mission in the digital environment (No. 17);
4) The revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis in a missionary synodal perspective (No. 11);
5) Some theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms (Nos. 8-9) [Note: the question of women’s access to the diaconal ministry is included here];
6) The revision, in a synodal missionary perspective, of the documents touching on the relationship between bishops, consecrated life and ecclesial associations (No. 10);
7. Some aspects of the person and ministry of the bishop (criteria for selecting candidates to the episcopacy, judicial function of the Bishops, nature and course of ad limina Apostolorum visits) from a missionary synodal perspective (Nos. 12-13)
8. The role of papal representatives in a missionary synodal perspective (No. 13)
9. Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues (No. 15) [Note: L.G.B.T. issues would be included here];
10. The reception of the fruits of the ecumenical journey in ecclesial practices (No. 7).
Paolo Ruffini, the prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, confirmed that the same rules regarding the media that were in force at the first session will also apply at the October synod. Participants may give interviews but only speak in general terms; they may not reveal what has been said in the groups or relate what another participant has said.
Asked about his expectations for the synod, Cardinal Hollerich responded: “I do not want to achieve anything from the synod. I am a servant of the church and of the synod. I have to put my own opinions aside, and I have to be open to synodal conversion. I hope I have no temptation of power, that would not be synodal. I just want to be a good servant of the church and of the synod.”
Material from Catholic News Service was used in this report.
Gerard O’Connell is America’s Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.
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