doIt was at the end of the Second Vatican Council, which brought together 3,000 bishops in Rome in four sessions between 1962 and 1965, that the synod of bishops was established. Pope Paul VI (1897-1978) thus wanted to prolong the dynamics of the council and have more regular and less onerous opportunities to work with representatives of episcopates from around the world.
The synod that concluded in Rome at the end of October was the sixteenth of its kind. Among the topics discussed in previous sessions, we can mention evangelization, evolution in the family and how to reach and accompany young people.
In 2015, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the institution of the Synod, Pope Francis wanted to launch a reflection on this institution and on the logic of shared responsibility that it should foster at all levels of ecclesial life, what he called. “synodality”.
The Church does not progress by revolutions
A consultation process was launched in September 2021, involving parishes from around the world, leading to diocesan, then national, and then continental summaries, with a view to developing the basic document for the Roman assemblies of October 2023 and 2024. . Despite certain difficulties To involve all the faithful, extensive work has begun around the world around the themes of “participation”, “communion” and “communion”. assignment “.
This third term “mission” is, without a doubt, the most decisive. It constitutes the “reason for being” of the Catholic Church, which is designed to create radiant believers, “missionary disciples”like the sign The joy of the gospel [Evangelii Gaudium, lettre apostolique publiée par le pape François le 24 novembre 2013]text of the program of the current pontificate. It is essential to ensure that everyone finds and occupies a better place in the Church, to decisively fight all forms of abuse. To do this, we must never forget that the believing community receives itself from God and is called to turn and bring our contemporaries back to him.
Some expected this synod and others feared it as a revolution that would fundamentally alter ecclesial structures and operations. The Church, however, like all human organizations, progresses not through revolutions but through deepening, purification and adjustment. The 350 members of the synodal assembly were actors and witnesses of this, bishops elected by episcopal or secular conferences, religious, priests and deacons, bishops, appointed by the Pope himself.
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