Synod, October 28: participants approve synthesis report; some advocates for change in Catholic teaching express disappointment
October 30, 2023
On October 28, the penultimate day of the first session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, the Synod’s 364 voting members approved a 37-page synthesis report intended to summarize their three weeks of discussion.
The status of the report—which the Synod’s secretariat has yet to make available in languages other than Italian—was downgraded during the course of the Synod’s first session (October 4-29):
- On October 5, Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, announced that the synthesis report of the October 2023 session of the Synod would form the agenda of the Synod’s second session in October 2024.
- On October 18, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, the Synod’s relator general, modified Ruffini’s announcement and said that the synthesis report would not be the working document of the second session.
- On October 26, Ruffini described the synthesis report as merely “transitory,” and said that its “main purpose is to help us understand where we are, to remember what has been said in these weeks of discernment, and to restart, in a circular process, a journey that began at the beginning of this Synod and will end in October 2024.”
Synthesis report: topics
Vatican News, operated by the Dicastery for Communication, offered brief summaries of the synthesis report’s discussion of the following topics:
- Listening to all, beginning with victims of abuse
- The face of a synodal Church
- Mission
- The poor at the center
- Commitment of believers in the field of politics and for the common good
- Migrants
- Combating racism and xenophobia
- Eastern Churches
- On the road to Christian unity
- Women in the life and mission of the Church
- Clericalism
- Opening the diaconate to women?
- Discrimination and abuse
- Consecrated life
- Deacons and formation
- Celibacy
- Bishops
- Abuses
- Listening
- Polygamy
- Digital culture
Synthesis report: roundup of coverage
While the synthesis report proposed potentially far-reaching changes in discipline to foster synodality, some advocates of changes in Catholic teaching expressed disappointment in the synthesis report. Here is a roundup of coverage of the synthesis report:
- Synod synthesis shows agreement, divergences, including on ‘synodality’ (CNS)
- Synod report proposes ways to foster synodal Church (The Pillar)
- Vatican Releases Synod on Synodality Report Proposing Larger Role for Laity in Church (CNA)
- Pope’s major Vatican summit ends without action on women deacons, mention of LGBTQ Catholics (National Catholic Reporter)
- Pope’s meeting on church future says it’s ‘urgent’ to guarantee governance roles for women (AP)
- Vatican synod ends without clear stances on women deacons, LGBT (Reuters)
- Vatican Synod Report Plays Down LGBTQ Issues, Disappointing Progressives (The Wall Street Journal)
- Synod Report Greatly Disappoints on LGBTQ+ Issues, Catholic Ministry Says (New Ways Ministry)
Earlier coverage
- Synod of Bishops publishes retreat texts
- Pope at Synod’s opening Mass: Let us walk with the Holy Spirit
- Synod, October 4: Pope emphasizes role of Holy Spirit; Cardinal Hollerich calls for ‘new insights’
- Synod, October 5: ‘Expert-facilitators’ guide discussion; final report will form agenda of 2024 Synod session
- Synod, October 6: discussion of 1st topic nears close; Vatican spokesman says participants may speak with media
- Synod, October 7-8: working groups submit first reports; leading African cardinal emphasizes listening, discernment
- Synod, October 9: participants turn to new topic; Orthodox prelate draws sharp contrast between Eastern synodality, current Synod
- Synod, October 10: participants discuss 2nd topic, elect members of key commission
- Synod, October 11: some participants call for ‘greater discernment’ of Catholic teaching on sexual morality
- Synod, October 12: participants pray for peace
- Synod, October 13: Cardinal Hollerich asks participants to set aside their own thinking, listen to others
- Synod, October 14-15: presiding sister says Synod is ‘setting the stage for future changes’
- Synod, October 16: women’s ordination to diaconate, LGBTQ ‘woundedness’ gain greater prominence
- Synod, October 17: Vatican spokesman mentions ‘reinstatement of female diaconate’
- Synod, October 18: Cardinal Hollerich calls for ‘small but sensitive changes’ in Church governance
- Synod, October 19: Cardinal Czerny says ‘identification’ between Holy Orders and Church offices is being ‘overcome’
- Synod, October 20: participants discuss authority and authoritarianism
- Synod, October 21-22: German bishop says apostolic Tradition needs to be set aside
- Synod, October 23-24: Father Radcliffe compares year between Synod sessions to pregnancy; Cardinal Schönborn speaks
- Synod, October 25: Assembly approves message: listen to everyone and God’s holy people are infallible, Pope tells Synod
- Synod, October 26: participants discuss synthesis report, which will be merely ‘transitory’
- Synod, October 27: over 1,200 amendments proposed to draft synthesis report
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