St. John – St. Paul Catholic Collaborative

Becoming a Synodal Church: Issues and Challenges
Sr. Nathalie Becquart, XMCJ Undersecretary for the General Secretariat of the Synod
Thursday, October 27 at 5:30pm to 7:00pm – Corcoran Commons, Heights Room, Chestnut Hill Campus – Attend in person or virtually
The Synod on Synodality is a transformative process in which all the baptized are protagonists and discern together the calls of the Holy Spirit, uniting as a listening Church of participation and co-responsibility…

In a surprise announcement after reciting the Angelus with thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on October 6, Pope Francis has significantly lengthened the final Roman phase of the ongoing Synod on Synodality.  It will now extend over two sessions from October 4-29, 2023, and in October 2024.

“I hope that this decision will favor the comprehension of synodality as a constitutive dimension of the church and help everyone to live it as a journey of brothers and sisters who witness to the joy of the Gospel,” the pope said when he broke the news.

“The fruits of the synodal process that has gone ahead are many, but in order for them to bear much fruit, we can’t hurry,” said Francis.

The 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council is a moment of particular grace also for the Synod, which represents a fruit of that ecumenical assembly, indeed one of its “most precious legacies” (Francis, Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio, Sept. 15, 2018, 1). The Synodus Episoporum, in fact, was instituted by St. Paul VI at the beginning of the fourth and final period of the Council (Sept. 15, 1965), responding to requests made by many council fathers…

The synodal process currently underway, dedicated to “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church,” is also within the Council’s wake…