‘Allowing the Holy Spirit to speak’: the first week of synod’s second assembly

The month-long Second Assembly of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops began on 2 October, following a two-day retreat at the Vatican, and will run until 27 October. Fourteen Australian Catholics are among the participants at the assembly, which brings together 368 bishops, priests, religious and lay people from around the world, along with 90 non-voting members. Pope Francis has also invited 16 representatives of non-Catholic Christian faiths. We take a look at some of the highlights of the first week.

‘Dare to trust’: synod members gather for two-day retreat

The two-day retreat that preceded the synod’s opening Mass was led by English Catholic priest and Dominican friar Fr Timothy Radcliffe—named by Pope Francis on 6 October as one of 21 new cardinals—and Benedictine nun Mother Ignazia Angelini.

On 30 September, the first day of the retreat, Fr Radcliffe said that some members of the synod may need to let go of old ways of doing things and others may need to let go of a desire to make everything new; instead, all of them must allow the Holy Spirit to speak.

The British theologian told participants that with its focus on mission and on helping the millions of people around the world who are searching for meaning and truth, the synod ‘is not a place for negotiations about structural change, but for choosing life, for conversion and forgiveness.’

‘The Lord summons us out of the small places in which we have taken refuge and in which we have imprisoned others,’ the Dominican said.

Fr Radcliffe reminded members that ‘our fierce love of the Church can also, paradoxically, make us narrow-minded: the fear that it will be harmed by destructive reforms which undermine the traditions that we love. Or the fear that the church will not become the wide-open home for which we long.’

‘It is deeply sad that often the Church is wounded by those who love the church, but differently,’ he said, reminding synod members that ‘perfect love drives out fear.’

Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, a spiritual adviser to the synod members, urged them to keep their deliberations anchored in prayer and in awe before the Eucharist.

‘Let us make room for the amazed listening that repositions us, disposes us for this new beginning of our journey together,’ she told them.

On the second day of the retreat, Fr Radcliffe told the synod members—who represent 1.3 billion Catholics around the world—that ‘the diverse cultures gathered in this assembly offer healing to each other, challenge each other’s prejudices and summon each other to a deeper understanding of love. We await a new Pentecost in which each culture speaks in its own native tongue and is understood.’

A much-needed step towards supporting and engaging with the many cultures within the Church is fostering trust among its members, he said. ‘Will we dare to trust each other, despite some failures?’ he asked. ‘The synod depends on it.’

Healing wounds: penitential liturgy seeks restoration

At the conclusion of the retreat synod members gathered for penitential liturgy with Pope Francis in St Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday 1 October.

In his homily, the Pope told the gathered synod members that the Catholic Church cannot be credible in its mission of proclaiming Christ unless it acknowledges its mistakes and bends down ‘to heal the wounds we have caused by our sins’.

During the penitential liturgy, seven cardinals read requests for forgiveness that the Pope said he wrote himself ‘because it was necessary to call our main sins by name’. The sins included abuse, a lack of courage and commitment to peace, lack of respect for every human life, mistreatment of women or failure to acknowledge their talents and contributions, using Church teaching as weapons to hurl at others, lack of concern for the poor, and a failure to recognise the dignity and role of every baptised person.

Pope Francis said at the service that ‘only by healing sick relationships can we become a synodal Church,’ one where all members listen to each other and share responsibility for its mission. The synod could not ‘invoke God’s name without asking for forgiveness from our brothers and sisters, from the earth and all creatures,’ he said. ‘How could we be [a] synodal Church without reconciliation? How could we claim to want to walk together without receiving and giving forgiveness, which restores communion in Christ?’

The liturgy included the testimonies of three witnesses to crime and sin: Laurence Gien, who as an 11-year-old boy in South Africa was raped by a priest; Sara Vatteroni, who works for the Italian Bishops’ Conference assisting migrants rescued from the Mediterranean Sea, accompanied by Solange, a migrant from the Ivory Coast; and Sr Deema Fayyad, a member of the Al-Khalil Monastic Community in Syria, who spoke about the impact of war.

‘Let us walk together’: synod opens in St Peter’s Square

The second assembly of the Synod of Bishops opened officially on 2 October when the Pope was joined by the 368 synod members at a Mass in St Peter’s Square. The synod’s 16 fraternal delegates—representatives from other Christian communities, who are participating in the assembly without voting privileges—were the first to process into the square, followed by laypeople and religious, who make up the 96 non-bishop voting members of the synod, or just over a quarter of the assembly.

Pope Francis urged synod participants to be careful ‘not to see our contributions as points to defend at all costs or agendas to be imposed,’ but rather to see their personal contribution to the synod proceedings ‘as a gift to be shared, ready even to sacrifice our own point of view in order to give life to something new, all according to God’s plan.’

The Pope reminded synod members that ‘the Christian community is always at the service of humanity to announce to all the joy of the Gospel’, something that ‘is needed above all in this dramatic hour of history when the winds of war and flames of violence continue to destroy entire peoples and nations.’

Though he acknowledged the need to be ‘great’ in spirit, heart and outlook—‘because the issues that we must deal with are great and delicate, and the situations are broad and universal’—the Pope also said that ‘the only way to be worthy of the task entrusted to us is to make ourselves small and to receive one another humbly.

‘Let us walk together, let us listen to the Lord, let us be led by the blowing of the Spirit,’ he said.

United in the service of God’s mercy: working sessions begin

After the opening Mass on 2 October, as the synod members began their work in the Paul VI Audience Hall, Pope Francis began by defending his decision to give women and lay men votes at the assembly, saying it reflects the Second Vatican Council’s teaching that a bishop exercises his ministry with and within the people of God.

‘We are being asked to work together symphonically, in a composition that unites all of us in the service of God’s mercy, in accordance with the different ministries and charisms that the bishop is charged to acknowledge and promote,’ the Pope told the members, seated at round tables with a mix of cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay men and women.

Quoting the ancient hymn ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus,’ Pope Francis prayed that the assembly would be ‘guided by the Holy Spirit, who “bends the stubborn heart and will, melts the frozen, warms the chill and guides the steps that go astray”’ as it strives ‘to help bring about a truly synodal Church, a Church in mission, capable of setting out, making herself present in today’s geographical and existential peripheries, and seeking to enter into a relationship with everyone in Jesus Christ, our brother and Lord.’

Addressing one of the ‘hot button’ topics of the synod, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, told members that ‘rushing’ to open the diaconate to women in the Catholic Church would short-circuit a necessary reflection on the relationship between ordained ministry and charismatic leadership, particularly as it affects the participation of women in the Church.

On the question of women deacons, ‘we know the public position of the Pope, who does not consider the question mature,’ the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office said.

‘The opportunity for a deepening remains open, but in the mind of the Holy Father, there are other issues still to be deepened and resolved before rushing to speak of a possible diaconate for some women,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, the diaconate becomes a kind of consolation for some women, and the most decisive question of the participation of women in the Church remains unanswered.’

In his written report, Cardinal Fernández has said that at this point, his dicastery ‘judges that there is still no room for a positive decision by the magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate, understood as a degree of the sacrament of holy orders.’

After the first assembly of the synod in 2023, Pope Francis set up 10 study groups to reflect more deeply on some of the most controversial or complicated questions raised during the synod process. Opening the diaconate to women and ensuring they have decision-making roles in the church was one of those questions, as was ministry to LGBTQ people, how bishops are chosen, and improving seminary education.

At the first working session on 2 October, brief videos about each group’s work were shown to the assembly. Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops, told participants that the study groups ‘are called to remain open to broader participation from the entire people of God’. Until the work of the synod concludes in June 2025, Church leaders, members of Catholic groups and associations, or any member of the faithful can send ‘contributions, observations or proposals’ to the synod office and they will be passed on to the appropriate study group.