VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Synod participants are now discussing what will become the final document of the Synod on Synodality, examining a draft which will receive amendments and votes before being publicly released on Saturday.
The entire final week of the 2024 session of the Synod on Synodality is given over to the highly anticipated document which will emerge on October 26 as the culmination of the process which began in 2021.
Dr. Paolo Ruffini, head of the Dicastery for Communications and of the synod’s information commission, informed the press corps on October 21 that a draft of the document has been written. The synod and the Church were at a “fundamental” moment, it was announced.
The draft text has been written in Italian, and though translations will likely be made for the various language groups of the Synod, the Italian original will be the reference text.
At #Vatican press briefing, the Synod team announce the 1st draft of final document is written.
It is under strict confidentiality to maintain “open debate” about it. Reference version is in Italian.
Final draft will be voted on this Sat after work on draft this week. pic.twitter.com/pjOlp6FUdg
— Michael Haynes (@MLJHaynes) October 21, 2024
As of this morning, everyone at the synod has now received a copy of the draft. It must remain highly confidential, however, “in order to maintain open debate” about its contents, the Vatican press corps were told.
Much emphasis has been placed by Synod leadership on maintaining a “retreat” style of operation this week, as the work of the final document is performed.
Cardinal Mario Grech, chair of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, re-iterated the constant message that the synod is not a parliamentary assembly. Instead he said that the synod, and the Church, “as in a continuous Pentecost – must ‘dialogue’ with the Holy Spirit, allow ourselves to be enlightened by Him, waiting for that ‘overflow’ that is the sign of His intervention.”
If the much-promoted synod style of listening “to the voice of the Spirit” is practiced, said Grech, “then we will be able to identify new paths and ‘as pilgrims of hope let us continue to advance along the synodal path towards those who still await the proclamation of the Good News of salvation!’”
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Also issuing his charge to the synod participants at the start of the final week was cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., who drew inspiration from the controversial theologians Yves Congar and Henri du Lubac.
Congar was censured by the Vatican under Pope Pius XII in the 1950s after publishing his book True and False Reform in the Church. “In the depths of this crisis,” said Radcliffe about Congar, “he wrote in his diary, that the only response to this persecution was ‘to speak the truth. Prudently, without provocative and useless scandal. But to remain – and to become more and more – an authentic and pure witness to what which is true.’”
Radcliffe urged the synod not to “be afraid of disagreement, for the Holy Spirit is at work in it.”
The controversial Dominican preacher also urged that those who might be “disappointed” at the synod document trust in God’s guidance of the process. He subsequently said that at the time of making these comments he had not read the document.
Fr Radcliffe says re Synod/Synod doc that they’re “about a deep renewal of the Church in a new situation…to see how the doc evokes new ways of being a Church in which we relate to each other much more profoundly in Christ, & to Christ much more profoundly with each other.” https://t.co/EDMVHtfSZS pic.twitter.com/g69rTNUZKu
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) October 21, 2024
“Often we can have no idea as to how God’s providence is at work in our lives,” he said. “We do what we believe to be right and the rest is in the hands of the Lord. This is just one synod. There will be others. We do not have to do everything, just try to take the next step.”
Addressing the assembled press Radcliffe said that “the really radical challenge of this document and this Synod is how we can be together in new ways.”
He echoed the synod leadership’s hope for a newly modeled Church, saying that we must wait “to see how the [final] document evokes new ways of being a Church in which we relate to each other much more profoundly in Christ, and to Christ much more profoundly with each other.”
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