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Pope Francis at the opening Mass for the 2023 Synod on SynodalityVatican News/screenshot

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Stressing “listening” to the Holy Spirit and an importance of finding “harmony” in the Synod on Synodality – with a forcefulness that closely resembled a firm warning more than mere advice – Pope Francis and the synod leaders gave their opening addresses to the participants last night.

Following the opening Mass of the Synod on Synodality, the Pope joined the participants of the Synod for the first General Congregation, during which opening speeches were delivered.

Participants are gathered at circular tables in the Paul VI Audience Hall instead of the Synod Hall, which is the more usual venue for a synod. 

READ: Here’s what will take place at the Synod on Synodality this October 

Defending the purpose of a synod entirely on the concept of “synodality,” Pope Francis attested that it was “a synod that all the bishops of the world have wanted.” 

This, he stated, was the result of a “poll that was done after the Amazon Synod, among all the bishops of the the world, the second place of preferences was this: synodality.” Francis said that the first result of the poll was “priests” and the third “a social issue.”

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Synod participants in the Paul VI Audience Hall.

Demand for ‘harmony’

Opening the series of speeches from the top table – which also included Cardinals Jean-Claude Hollerich and Mario Grech – Francis repeated often that the Holy Spirit “is the protagonist” of the event. 

But he added that the Holy Spirit does not produce “unity,” but instead “harmony.” “Not unity, no, harmony,” said Francis. “He unites us in harmony, the harmony of all differences. If there is no harmony, there is no Spirit.”

Francis described the Holy Spirit as being “almost maternal,” who “like a mother, leads us, gives us this consolation” of harmony. 

READ: Synod on Synodality members ordered to observe perpetual secrecy about discussions

The Pope also made a series of comments which appeared as a veiled attack on critics of the Synod on Synodality, saying that “empty words sadden the Holy Spirit.”

The empty words, the worldly words and coming down a bit to a certain human but not good habit – the chatter. The chattering is the anti-Holy Spirit, it goes against Him. It is a very common disease among us … Gossip, backbiting: this saddens the Holy Spirit. It is the most common disease in the Church, the chattering. And if we do not let Him heal us of this disease, hardly a synodical path will be good. 

‘Indicative’ vote

This theme of required harmony was echoed by Cardinal Hollerich, who serves as the relator general of the Synod on Synodality. Making a break in his prepared remarks, Hollerich spoke about the voting that will take place on the Synod’s final document. 

“In an ideal situation … it would be the joy of consolation which shows us that we have a new harmony and that we have found unity. The vote should just be indicative,” smiled Hollerich. 

“The common joy should be the clear sign,” he added. “But let us not forget that we have two years because the Holy Spirit needs time, because of our hearts which resist.” Hollerich’s remarks are now only found in the live-streamed video address, not in the Vatican’s official press release.

READ FULL TEXT: Cardinal Zen issues strong appeal to bishops at Synod on Synodality

Hollerich also praised the Synod’s planned sessions of “conversations in the Spirit,” although such a phrase has not been clarified by the Vatican. “One of the strengths of the method of conversation in the Spirit is that it allows the expression of everyone’s point of view, enhancing consonances without neglecting differences, but above all discouraging polarisations and polemics,” he said. 

However, Cardinal Raymond Burke recently argued that “it is unfortunately very clear that the invocation of the Holy Spirit on the side of some has for its purpose the advancement of an agenda that is more political and human than ecclesial and divine.”

READ: Cardinal Burke responds to dubia criticism, warns Synod aims to change Church’s structure

“The Holy Spirit is very often invoked in the perspective of the synod … but there is not a single word about the obedience due to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit that are always consistent with the truth of the perennial doctrine and the goodness of the perennial discipline that He has inspired throughout the centuries,” Burke said.

‘Crossroads’ in the Church

For his part, Cardinal Mario Grech, the general secretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, observed that the Church was “at a crossroads.” But in juxtaposition to many commentators, Grech said that “the urgent challenge strictly speaking is not theological or ecclesiological in nature, but how in this moment of history the Church can become a sign and instrument of God’s love for every man and woman.”

He argued that the Synod on Synodality had already had “difficulties and misunderstandings” but that the Church had “been educated in the synodal experience of ‘walking together.’”

Grech cited the various synod documents which have been produced in the last two years and which have culminated in the Instrumentum Laboris for this month’s event – a text that contains topics such as women’s diaconal “ordination,” married priests, and an alleged need to “welcome” the “remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people.” 

READ: What should Catholics expect regarding the Synod on Synodality’s final document?

“If the published documents refer back to moments in which the People of God and its pastors had an intense experience of synodality, all the more reason why this Assembly is called today to be for the Church a strong sign of synodality, listening to the Word of God, in the light of Tradition, in order to understand God’s will for today,” stated Grech. 

October’s Synod marks the second phase of the multi-year Synod on Synodality, said Grech, a phase that “is called to show the Church as one and only one, the Ecclesia tota, in which the richness and variety of gifts, charisms, ministries, and vocations translates into mutual listening, into gifts given and received, to the point that even today we can experience ‘one heart and one soul’ (Acts 4:32).”

To this end, Grech praised the participation of lay people as voting members – a move that Pope Francis effected personally earlier this year and which has caused consternation among canonists due to the effect on the Synod of Bishops. 

READ: Bp. Athanasius Schneider appeals to Pope to revoke lay voting rights before Synod on Synodality  

“We are here to continue listening around the underlying question that has sustained the entire synod process: ‘… what steps does the Spirit invite us to take as a synodal Church?’” closed Grech.

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