Synod members vote to dialogue with study groups set up by pope

VATICAN CITY (CNS)—Members of the Synod of Bishops have voted to give up one of their few free afternoons to “dialogue” with the leaders of the study groups that Pope Francis has set up to reflect on important questions raised by the synod in 2023.

Paolo Ruffini, president of the synod’s communications committee, said synod leaders received Pope Francis’ approval for putting the idea to a vote on Oct. 5. It was approved overwhelmingly, and the dialogue is scheduled for Oct. 18.

The study groups are investigating questions such as how bishops are chosen in the Latin-rite church, how to improve seminary formation, how to improve relations between bishops and the religious communities that minister in their dioceses, ministry to LGBTQ Catholics and possible ministry roles for women in the Church.

Short videos about the work of each of the 10 groups and a brief report on what had been accomplished thus far were shared with synod members on Oct. 2.

Synod officials also said that synod members and any other Catholic could share their perspective or concerns with any group by writing to the synod office—synodus@synod.va—before June, when the groups are due to report to

Pope Francis.

At a synod briefing for reporters on Oct. 7, none of the participants would confirm a rumor that the synod vote to dialogue with the group leaders was provoked specifically by concern over the report from the group looking at women’s roles in the Church.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and chair of that group, had told members of the synod on Oct. 2 that the question of ordaining women deacons was not yet “mature.”

“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.

Our Lady of the Apostles Sister Mary Barron, president of the International Union of Superiors General and leader of her order, told reporters at the briefing on Oct. 7 that synod members felt the reports were “very short and we wanted to know about what is actually happening.”

And, she said, with some groups—for example, the one looking at relations between bishops and religious—“we’d like to know more about who’s involved and be perhaps more directly involved going forward.”

Sister Mary also said that in the synod, “I find that there are as many men convinced of the need to change the position in the Church with regards to the participation of women” as there are women.

Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai said the issues were not “taken off the table” when the pope set up the study groups in March, but Pope Francis was concerned that synod members would focus so much on those issues that they would not “focus sufficiently on synodality itself.”

The cardinal said he was asked repeatedly—sometimes with “alarm”— over the past several months about the study groups and specifically about the group on women’s ministry and whether the pope set up the groups because he wanted to avoid having the synod discuss the question.

“I said, ‘No, we don’t want to avoid that; we’ve entrusted it into a particular group, but we do not want to focus on that’ ” to the exclusion of other issues, he told reporters.

Members of the Synod of Bishops have also begun looking for ways to make relationships within the Church more transparent and more harmonious, so that witnesses may become more credible. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, relator general of the synod, told members that was their task as the second week of the monthlong assembly began on Oct. 7.

While opening discussions about the second module of the synod’s working document, the cardinal said it would be easy for the assembly to “remain on a general level and simply reiterate the importance of relationships for the development of people and communities.”

But, he said, “the people of God are waiting for guidance and suggestions from us on how to make that vision concretely livable.”

The question, the cardinal said, is: “What is the Holy Spirit inviting us to do to move from a pyramidal way of exercising authority to a synodal way?”

During the first week of synod proceedings, members discussed their understandings of the foundations of synodality in the Church.

Cardinal Hollerich said that during the second week, members will “seek ways to make operative today the ecclesiological perspective outlined” by the Second Vatican Council.

The challenge, he said, will be to avoid the risk of falling “into an excess of abstraction on the one hand, and in an excess of pragmatism in the other.”

The cardinal asked members not to be afraid “to draw an outline of concrete proposals that individual Churches will then be called upon to adapt to different circumstances.”

Offering a reflection on the morning Mass’ Gospel reading in which Jesus recounts the parable of the good Samaritan, Benedictine Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, a spiritual adviser to the synod, said that the story “reveals that the commandment of God is understood through an instinctive ‘seeing’ ” of the other and a call “to surrender to the relationship.”

“The Samaritan is the living symbol of relational transformation,” she said, because he forms a sense of relationship that testifies “to God, not himself.”

“We are called by the synodal way to see the other in weaving, complementary relationships, stemming from that moment in which we are both the Samaritan and the half-dead man,” she said, “saved, pitied and called to be merciful.” †