During the next few months, someone may contact you from your parish with a request to interview you. On the other hand, in your parish bulletin, there may be a message from your pastor encouraging you to call a fellow parishioner to arrange for an interview. I encourage you to respond and to participate. This is not a scam. It is all on the level. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has called the Church to a synod with the title, “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission.”
At a Solemn Mass on Sunday, Oct.17, with prayer we kicked off the first phase of this synod, the diocesan phase that involves interviewing people to ascertain what they think of the Church. Prior to the Mass, those who will do the interviews received a training on how to conduct an interview.
The plan is that this synod will take place in three phases. During the first phase, the diocesan phase, interviews are to be conducted to listen to those who wish to be heard about the Church. The goal of this listening phase is to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church through those interviewed. The listening phase is not to answer questions you may have about the Church, nor to engage in arguments. As Pope Francis said when he opened the diocesan phase for the Diocese of Rome of which he is the Bishop, the listening is “to provide an opportunity to tell one’s story and speak freely.”
A synod is not something new for our Church. Its origins are found in the early Church. The modern popes – Saint Paul VI, Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis – have conducted 15 synods on a variety of topics. Pope Francis has presided over five synods. What is new and unique about this synod is that before the meeting of the bishops in Rome in October 2023 there will be extensive worldwide listening to what people, both in and out of the Church, have to say about the Church.
The synodal process is arranged to follow these phases. The diocesan phase, the listening sessions, will begin now and conclude in April 2022. A summary of what people in our Diocese have said during the interviews will be submitted to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), where it will be synthesized into a national summary of the listening sessions conducted in all the dioceses of the United States.
That summary from the Church in the United States will be included with summaries from the worldwide listening consultations. From that worldwide consultation the first draft of the working document, called the Instrumentum Laboris, will be prepared.
Then the next phase of the synod, the Continental Phase, from September 2022 to March 2023, will take place, during which there will be more study and discernment in each continent of the world to prepare the second working Instrumentum Laboris document, which will be sent to the participants of the Synod of Bishops in Rome to be held in October 2023.
This diocesan phase is your opportunity to express your concerns about our Church. During the interviews, many voices across South Jersey will be listened to in order to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Our Holy Father Pope Francis, by choosing this unique synodal process, clearly wants all the peoples to be listened to and to be heard. He described it as a “process conceived as an exercise in mutual listening, conducted at all levels of the Church and involving the entire people of God.”
What is unique and very different about this synodal process is that it involves a wider participation of the people of God than any previous modern synod. The goal is to discern in the many voices what the Holy Spirit is asking of the Church at this time in her history.
I thank each parishioner who will conduct the interviews throughout the Diocese. Each one, selected by his or her pastor, and out of love for our Church, is committed to do these interviews for the good of our Church. Please, give them your full cooperation and respect. In the months ahead, periodic reports of what the people of our Diocese are saying will be published. As the process rolls out during the other phases of the synod, you will be kept up to date.
The word synod means “journeying together.” Your participation in this process is needed. I look forward to this dynamic of ‘journeying together’ with you. Let us always remember as we undertake the diocesan phase of the synod, the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, accompanies us, His Church.
Most Reverend Dennis J. Sullivan, D.D.
Bishop of Camden