Synod synthesis shows agreement, divergences, including on ‘synodality’

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A report summarizing discussions at the assembly of the Synod of Bishops said the church may need more welcoming pastoral approaches, especially to people who feel excluded, but also acknowledged fears of betraying traditional church teachings and practices.

Among the topics addressed in the report were clerical sexual abuse, women’s roles in the church, outreach to poor and the concept of “synodality” itself.

The assembly, with 364 voting members – 365 counting Pope Francis – met in working sessions six days a week Oct. 4-28 after a three-day retreat outside of Rome. They were scheduled to join the pope Oct. 29 for the assembly’s closing Mass.

After the voting on the synthesis concluded, the pope said he wanted to remind everyone that “the protagonist of the synod is the Holy Spirit.” He briefly thanked the synod officers and joined members of the assembly in giving thanks to God.

Pope Francis gives his blessing at the conclusion of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops’ last working session Oct. 28, 2023, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

The assembly’s discussions set the stage for a year-long period of reflection that will culminate in the second and final synod assembly in late 2024 on the same topic.

The 41-page synthesis report, voted on paragraph-by-paragraph Oct. 28, described its purpose as presenting “convergences, matters for consideration and proposals that emerged from the dialogue” on issues discussed under the headings of synodality, communion, mission and participation.

Every item in the report was approved by at least two-thirds of the members present and voting, synod officials said. They published a complete list of the votes.

Within the synod topics, members looked at the role of women in the church, including in decision making, and at the possibility of ordaining women deacons. The report asked for more “theological and pastoral research on the access of women to the diaconate,” including a review of the conclusions of commissions Pope Francis set up in 2016 and 2020.

The paragraph, one of several on the theme of women deacons, was approved 279-67, which was more than the needed two-thirds support but still garnered among the highest negative votes.

Among members of the assembly, the report said, some thought the idea of women deacons would be a break with tradition, while others insisted it would “restore the practice of the Early Church,” including at the time of the New Testament, which mentions women deacons.

“Others still, discern it as an appropriate and necessary response to the signs of the times, faithful to the Tradition, and one that would find an echo in the hearts of many who seek new energy and vitality in the church,” it said. But, the report added, some members thought that would “marry the church to the spirit of the age.”

The paragraph on how different members explained their support of or opposition to women deacons also was approved by more than two-thirds of the voting members, but it received more negative votes than any other item, passing 277 to 69.

Assembly members also discussed pastoral approaches to welcoming and including in the life of parishes people who have felt excluded, including the poor, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ Catholics and Catholics whose marriages are not recognized by the church.

The synthesis report did not use the term “LGBTQ+” or even “homosexuality” and spoke only generally of issues related to “matters of identity and sexuality.”

Jesuit Father James Martin, a synod member involved in outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, told Catholic News Service, “From what I understand, there was too much pushback to make using the term ‘LGBTQ’ viable, even though it was contained in the ‘Instrumentum Laboris,'” or synod working document.

“This opposition came up often in the plenary sessions, along with others who argued from the other side, that is, for greater inclusion and for seeing LGBTQ people as people and not an ideology,” he said.

The synthesis said that “to develop authentic ecclesial discernment in these and other areas, it is necessary to approach these questions in the light of the Word of God and church teaching, properly informed and reflected upon.”

“In order to avoid repeating vacuous formulas, we need to provide an opportunity for a dialogue involving the human and social sciences, as well as philosophical and theological reflection,” it added.

The divergences in the assembly, it said, reflected opposing concerns: that “if we use doctrine harshly and with a judgmental attitude, we betray the Gospel; if we practice mercy ‘on the cheap,’ we do not convey God’s love.”

Still, it said, “in different ways, people who feel marginalized or excluded from the church because of their marriage status, identity or sexuality, also ask to be heard and accompanied. There was a deep sense of love, mercy and compassion felt in the Assembly for those who are or feel hurt or neglected by the church, who want a place to call ‘home’ where they can feel safe, be heard and respected, without fear of feeling judged.”

The report emphasized the “listening” that took place on the local, national and continental levels before the assembly and the “conversations in the Spirit” that took place during it, which involved each person speaking in his or her small group, other participants at first commenting only on what struck them, silent reflection and then discussion.

In several places throughout the report, assembly members insisted that greater efforts must be made to listen to the survivors of clerical sexual abuse and those who have endured spiritual or psychological abuse.

“Openness to listening and accompanying all, including those who have suffered abuse and hurt in the church, has made visible many who have long felt invisible,” it said. “The long journey toward reconciliation and justice, including addressing the structural conditions that abetted such abuse, remains before us, and requires concrete gestures of penitence.”

Members of the assembly said the process helped them experience the church as “God’s home and family, a church that is closer to the lives of her people, less bureaucratic and more relational.”

However, it said, the terms “synodal” and “synodality,” which “have been associated with this experience and desire,” need further clarification, including theological clarification and, perhaps, in canon law.

Some participants, it said, questioned how an assembly where about 21% of participants were lay women, lay men, religious and priests could be termed a Synod of Bishops.

The report also acknowledged fears, including that “the teaching of the church will be changed, causing us to depart from the Apostolic faith of our forebears and, in doing so, betraying the expectations of those who hunger and thirst for God today.”

In response, though, assembly members said, “We are confident that synodality is an expression of the dynamic and living tradition.”

“It is clear that some people are afraid that they will be forced to change; others fear that nothing at all will change or that there will be too little courage to move at the pace of the living tradition,” the report said.

“Also,” it added, “perplexity and opposition can sometimes conceal a fear of losing power and the privileges that derive from it.”

Members of the assembly described the synodal process as being “rooted in the tradition of the church” and taking place in light of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, particularly its emphasis on “the church as Mystery and People of God, called to holiness.”

Synodality, they said, “values the contribution all the baptized make, according to their respective vocations,” and thus “constitutes a true act of further reception of the Council.”

The report also insisted the purpose of synodality is mission.

“As disciples of Jesus, we cannot shirk the responsibility of demonstrating and transmitting the love and tenderness of God to a wounded humanity,” the report said.

Throughout the synod process, the report said, “many women expressed deep gratitude for the work of priests and bishops. They also spoke of a church that wounds. Clericalism, a chauvinist mentality and inappropriate expressions of authority continue to scar the face of the church and damage its communion.”

“A profound spiritual conversion is needed as the foundation for any effective structural change,” it said. “Sexual abuse and the abuse of power and authority continue to cry out for justice, healing and reconciliation.”

(To view the Synod synthesis report of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, visit https://www.synod.va/en/news/a-synodal-church-in-mission.html)

Briefs

NATION
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (OSV News) – Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Brooklyn celebrated a Mass of Reparation Nov. 4 in a Brooklyn Catholic Church used in a violent and provocative music video, and he has removed its well-known pastor from his diocesan development role. Pop singer Sabrina Carpenter released a music video to her song “Feather” Oct. 31, which includes scenes of the singer dancing and performing inside and outside of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Brooklyn, including in the sanctuary where the altar is located. Msgr. Jamie Gigantiello, the parish’s pastor, was removed as the Diocese of Brooklyn’s vicar for development Nov. 3. He will remain pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel-Annunciation Parish. However, Bishop Robert Brennan has appointed Auxiliary Bishop Witold Mroziewski as the temporary administrator. Earlier this week, Bishop Brennan was said to be “appalled” by what was filmed. “Bishop Robert Brennan strongly condemns the filming of the music video inside Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church. A review of the documents presented to the parish prior to the filming, while failing to depict the entirety of the scenes, clearly portrays inappropriate behavior unsuitable for a church sanctuary,” a diocesan statement read.

This is a painting of Blessed María Antonia de San José, an 18th-century consecrated laywoman from Argentina who will be canonized in early 2024, according to an Oct. 24, 2023, announcement by the Vatican. A miracle through her intervention that was needed for her canonization was recently authenticated. San José, popularly known as “Mama Antula,” will be Argentina’s first home-grown female saint (OSV News artwork/Enrique Breccia)

MOBILE, Ala. (OSV News) – The Archdiocese of Mobile said it is “relieved” that a priest who fled his pastoral assignment this summer has returned to the U.S., as the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office announced its investigation into the priest has been closed with no charges filed. The archdiocese also affirmed the soon-to-be-laicized cleric has been removed from ministry. Father Alex Crow, who abruptly left Corpus Christi Parish in Mobile at the end of July to travel to Italy with a June 2023 graduate of McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, “may have returned home to the Mobile area” according to “numerous individuals and media reports,” said the archdiocese in a Nov. 6 statement. The statement – which referred to the priest by his given name, without the title “Father” – noted that he had not contacted the archdiocese, which stressed that Father Crow “has been removed from ministry and his priestly faculties are suspended. “Therefore, Crow is not to exercise any ministry as a priest, or present himself as a priest,” said the statement. “He is not allowed to celebrate Mass, visit school grounds, or lead any church ministries. If anyone is aware of Crow doing so, they are encouraged to contact the Archdiocese immediately at (251) 434-1587.”

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis will travel to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates Dec. 1-3 to participate in the U.N. Climate Change Conference, the Vatican press office confirmed. In an interview broadcast in Italy Nov. 1, the pope had said he intended to go, but the Vatican did not confirm the trip until Nov. 3. “Accepting the invitation of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, His Holiness Pope Francis will make the previously announced trip to Dubai from 1 to 3 December 2023, on the occasion of the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” commonly called COP28, said Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office. The conference is designed to assess progress or failures in reaching the goals adopted by 196 nations and parties, including the Holy See, with the Paris climate agreement in 2015.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – On the 800th anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi setting up the first Nativity scene, the creche in St. Peter’s Square in 2023 will come from the Diocese of Rieti, Italy, and pay tribute to the scene set up in the diocese in 1223. The Christmas tree that will stand in St. Peter’s Square is expected to be more than 80 feet tall and come from the Maira Valley near Turin. It will be decorated with live edelweiss flowers cultivated at a nursery nearby; picking or transplanting wild edelweiss is against the law in Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The unveiling of the creche and lighting of the Christmas tree in the square is scheduled for 7 p.m. Dec. 9. They will remain in the square through the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, Jan. 7, 2024.

WORLD
WADOWICE, Poland (OSV News) – In 1988, when he was a convicted drug addict serving time in prison, he thought of God as a severe Father who punishes rather than loves. Until a tiny woman visited his prison. That woman was Mother Teresa. James Wahlberg, once a convict, is now a film producer and has just created a documentary about her. “Mother Teresa: No Greater Love,” produced with the Knights of Columbus, commemorated the 25th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s favorite saints, but the film also provides an exploration of her long-lasting legacy, and producers traveled the world to show it. “This film is much bigger. … Sometimes in Catholic programming … budgets are very low. We had a full budget and we had full access to the Missionaries of Charity,” Wahlberg told OSV News. Brother of Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg, James was a troubled kid and fell into drug addiction. Asked about the encounter that changed his life, he said he had “goosebumps” and “emotion welling up” in his chest. “I’m just thinking about that day, the day the first time I ever heard in my life that God loved me and that Jesus died for me,” he said. He recalled there were 800 people in the room but he remembered Mother Teresa “talking to me.” The documentary premiered in Poland Oct. 19.

BUENOS AIRES (OSV News) – Argentina will get its first home-grown female saint in early 2024 with the canonization of Blessed María Antonia de San José. The Vatican announced Oct. 24 that San José, born as María Antonia de Pa Figueroa, but known throughout Argentina simply as Mama Antula, would be canonized as the pope authorized the promulgation of the decree on the miracle attributed to her intercession. The decision means a lot for Argentina, its native Pope Francis and his Jesuit order. She will be the fifth saint associated with Argentina of whom four were elevated to sainthood by Pope Francis but is the first female of Argentina to be canonized. “Mama Antula is considered the mother of the nation. She was a strong, brave woman who believed in Argentina. She was committed to the country and that knowing Christ would transform society,” Bishop Santiago Olivera told OSV News. Mama Antula’s path to sainthood began more than a century ago. Pope Francis beatified her in 2016. When the Jesuits were expelled from Spain and its colonies in the Americas in 1767, Bishop Olivera said that Mama Antula kept the Jesuits’ work going and she continued to work with the Jesuits until the end of her life. “It is impressive that after all these years she will be canonized and it will be a Jesuit who makes her a saint,” said Bishop Olivera.

10 top takeaways from the synthesis report and why they matter

By Peter Jesserer Smith (OSV News)

The Synod on Synodality’s first session at the Vatican has concluded, with its results wrapped up in a 41-page “half-time report” for the entire church to digest, reflect on and give feedback about ahead of the synod’s final session in Rome next October.

Pope Francis gives his blessing at the conclusion of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops’ last working session Oct. 28, 2023, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

The report, a synthesis of the Oct. 4-29 meeting, is fundamentally an instrument for discernment, and it is designed to elicit further reflection and response from the whole church. The synod’s next session in Rome will have the task of making decisions about what concrete proposals to present before the pope. Ultimately, the pope will decide what to implement coming out of the Synod on Synodality.

The following are 10 takeaways about the synod’s synthesis report, with why it matters for Catholics in parishes and what happens next.

– 1. Synodality is about the church’s evangelizing mission, and baptism is why synodal governance matters.

The synod relates that “synodality is ordered to mission,” recognizing that the church’s members – with diverse backgrounds, languages and cultures — share the “common grace of baptism.” The synod’s themes of “communion, participation, mission” are the hallmarks for how the entire people of God in a synodal church – the laity, consecrated religious, deacons and priests with the bishops united with the pope – relate to each other and live together the call to holiness, proclaiming Jesus Christ’s good news to the world.

The synod explicitly says its work is rooted in the church’s dynamic and living tradition in the context of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching. But the synod also recognizes much remains to be done to clarify what “synodality” means, and to develop it into real processes and structures.

Part of that is figuring out how decisions are made in the church in a way that is faithful to its nature – including discerning how episcopal collegiality is exercised in a synodal church – because the church’s members have “differentiated co-responsibility for the common mission of evangelization.”

The synod’s “conversations in the Spirit” – an experience of listening and sharing in the light of faith, and seeking God’s will in an authentically evangelical atmosphere” – is recognized as a helpful tool in this regard.

– 2. The synod calls for formation in “authentic discipleship,” united by the Eucharist and nourished by the Word.

The synod stresses that all the church’s members are called to be “all disciples, all missionaries” who have the “responsibility of demonstrating and transmitting the love and tenderness of God to a wounded humanity.” In other words, living discipleship is at the heart of being Catholic.

The synod suggested deepening the notion that a “mature exercise of the ‘sensus fidei’ requires not only reception of baptism but a life lived in authentic discipleship that develops the grace of baptism.” The synod recognizes this can help discern where the Holy Spirit is at work, as opposed to where the baptized are just advocating dominant thinking, cultural conditions or “matters inconsistent with the Gospel.”

In this regard, the synod stresses that “the Eucharist shapes synodality,” and so the Mass should be celebrated “with an authentic sense of friendship in Christ” that reflects beauty and simplicity. The synod proposes “liturgy celebrated with authenticity is the first and fundamental school of discipleship.”

It also proposes enriching Catholic life beyond the Mass with alternative forms of liturgical prayer, as well as popular piety, particularly Marian devotion – both of which form the faithful and can also help others outside the church encounter the Lord.

– 3. Synodality is not about having more meetings, but it is about discerning together how to go on mission at each level of the church.

The synod also emphasizes that synodality in the church calls Catholics to discern intentionally as a community how Jesus is calling them to live out their mission. It’s not about self-referential meetings, but rather a style of carrying out “evangelical proclamation, service to those experiencing poverty, care for our common home and theological research.”

The document emphasizes the need for formation, and also making spaces to receive the church’s teaching, and discern how to act on it. The church’s social doctrine needs to be understood by the faithful so they can build up the kingdom of God.

Synodality is about gathering the disciple community together to discern what is their mission and how Jesus is sending them on mission. Any effective structural change to make the church’s members “co-responsible” presupposes “profound spiritual conversion,” both personal and communal, in order to carry out Jesus’ mission.

At the same time, the synod calls for further consideration on how the church’s theology and modern developments in science can dialogue, and effective ways to do that for the church’s discernment, particularly on complicated or controversial questions. Above all, the synod says, “Jesus’ actions, assimilated in prayer and conversion of heart, show us the way forward.”

– 4. A synodal church must reflect on what formation its priests, deacons and laity need to carry out their mission together.

The synod recognizes bishops and priests face disproportionate burdens of responsibility for the church’s mission. It also identifies clericalism as opposed to Jesus’ model of ministerial service, leading to “authoritarian attitudes,” and vocations stifled by privilege and power that refuse accountability.

The synod suggests extensive discussion and consideration of revising priestly formation to address this. Instead of forming priests in an “artificial environment separate from the ordinary lives of the faith,” they should develop through “close contact with the People of God and through concrete service learning experiences.”

The synod recognized there is universal agreement that priestly celibacy is “richly prophetic and a profound witness to Christ.” But it also suggested further consideration of whether it is appropriate for the Latin Church alone to continue to insist on it – the Eastern Churches (Catholic and Orthodox) have a tradition of celibate and married clergy – when there are ecclesial and cultural contexts that make it more difficult for the church’s mission.

The synod is calling for a deepening reflection on the vocation of the deacon, “above all in the exercise of charity.”

The synod indicated the importance of expanding women’s access to theological formation, their inclusion in decision-making and responsibility in pastoral care and ministry, and even the exploration of new ministries where women could decisively contribute. It noted the debate over women and the diaconal ministry, and expressed openness to continuing research and examining what has been done so far.

It also touched on lay ministry and called for more creativity in how these roles are thought of and lived at the service of mission: for example, developing the ministry of lector beyond its liturgical role, such as preaching in appropriate contexts. It also envisioned possibly a lay ministry taken up by married couples to support married and family life.

– 5. Disciples listen to people and accompany them like Christ in whatever their personal, familial or social situations.

The synod says “listening is the word that best expresses our experience. This is listening given and received.” Listening really is where the church discerns the mission Jesus is calling his disciples and their particular communities.

It also emphasized the church needs to give its closeness, listening and accompaniment to those who feel alone in remaining faithful to the church’s teaching on marriage and sexual ethics, as well as to those on the margins because of “their marriage status, identity or sexuality.”

The synod suggests further consideration of the point that listening “does not mean compromising proclamation of the Gospel or endorsing any opinion or position proposed” – but rather being like Jesus, who listens and loves unconditionally to share his good news.

It also emphasized the church needs to extend its closeness to the lonely and abandoned, the elderly and sick.

The synod document called for further discernment about “Eucharistic hospitality” – the situation of people of different churches receiving Communion – and “inter-church marriages.”

– 6. The Catholic Church needs strong Eastern Churches collaborating with the Latin Church.

The synod indicates it is vital for Catholics to realize that the Catholic Church is a communion of coequal sister churches – Latin Church (the biggest and headed by the pope) and 23 different Eastern Catholic Churches, all enjoying communion through their unity with the pope. The synod calls for all Catholic communities and clergy to learn about each other and actively work together modeling “unity in diversity.”

It stresses that the Latin Church’s members (for the most part known as Roman Catholics) need to help Eastern Catholics in situations where they do not have access to their own churches to live out their traditions. The synod said “Latinization” (making Eastern churches conform to the traditions and practices of Latin churches) is “outdated.”

The synod indicated that Eastern Churches must work out their relationship to role of the pope, whose role is rooted in the Latin Church, specifically in whether his assent is needed in the selection of bishops, and the fact that Catholics of these Eastern Churches are no longer confined to traditional patriarchal territory but are now all over the world.

It proposes a permanent council of patriarchs and major archbishops to the Holy Father, and that Eastern Catholics should be adequately represented throughout the Roman Curia.

– 7. The synod suggests a new path for ecumenism, particularly thanks to the martyrs.

There has been a lot of discouragement about dialogue between Catholic and other Christian confessions achieving its goal of actual unity – but the synod appears to have made significant suggestions for moving ahead.

Among the proposals was that an “ecumenical martyrology” be developed, which would allow the church to commemorate Christian martyrs who share a common baptism but not the same confessional boundaries. The point has been emphasized most recently by the early 21st-century martyrdoms, such as in the Middle East, where Islamist militants killed Orthodox and Catholics for being Christians – among them the 21 Coptic Orthodox martyrs of Libya.

The synod emphasized that local churches can engage ecumenically with other churches in carrying out the work of the Gospel, and the importance of continuing to involve Christians of other churches and traditions in synodal processes “at all levels.”

Among the proposals is to find a common date for the celebration of Easter with an eye to the year 2025, the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.

– 8. The synod emphasizes the church needs to evangelize digital spaces intentionally as a dimension of its mission.

The synod views the digital realm not as a separate field but a “crucial dimension of the church’s witness in contemporary culture.” This means understanding digital culture in order to evangelize it and engaging the church’s younger generation – clergy, religious and lay – in carrying out the mission here.

The synod proposes discernment on how the church can be involved in helping make the online world “safe” for families — noting the dangers of intimidation, disinformation, sex exploitation and addiction — and how the church can make the digital realm “spiritually life-giving.”

This challenges parishes and dioceses about how to engage here, especially forming and accompanying “digital missionaries” and networking them together. It also suggests creating collaborative opportunities with influencers, particularly in areas of “human dignity, justice and care for our common home.”

– 9. Sex abuse is undermining the church’s missionary life, and the synod recognizes that a truly synodal church needs to get this right.

The synod stated, “Sexual abuse and the abuse of power and authority continue to cry out for justice, healing and reconciliation.” It acknowledges this synodal process has seen the Holy Spirit pour out fruits of “hope, healing, reconciliation and restoration of trust.”

Furthermore, listening to and accompanying those who have suffered abuse in the church have helped people feel no longer invisible. At the same time, the synod makes clear “the long journey towards reconciliation and justice” remains and requires “addressing the structural conditions that abetted such abuse” and “concrete gestures of penitence.”

A synodal church requires a “culture of transparency,” respect for existing procedures to safeguard minors and people when they are vulnerable, and “further structures dedicated to the prevention of abuse.” It noted bishops are in a difficult situation of reconciling their “role of father with that of judge,” and suggested exploring the possibility of giving the judicial task to another body specified in canon law.

– 10. The bishops must now figure out how to take these ideas to the pews for further discernment and bring that back to the synod.

The synod synthesis’ 41-pages are broken up into three sections with vital topics that truly interest and affect the entire People of God.

At this point, the synod leaves it to worldwide episcopal conferences to discern the next steps to take. During the synod’s first session, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, acknowledged that the bishops would have to foster greater participation, including encouraging pastors to buy in. U.S. participation rate in the synod’s preparatory process was 1% of U.S. Catholics.

The prospect of getting this feedback within a year may seem daunting to bishops. If the document is really going to be thoroughly discerned and feedback provided within 11 months, the lay faithful will likely have to raise their voices and volunteer to work with their pastors and bishops to get it done in time for the second October session.

Peter Jesserer Smith is national news and features editor for OSV News.

NOTES: The synod’s synthesis report can be found here: https://www.synod.va/en/news/a-synodal-church-in-mission.html.

Briefs

NATION
LAS VEGAS (OSV News) – In a sign of the growing Catholic community of southern Nevada and the Western United States, the Archdiocese of Las Vegas has become the newest archdiocese in America. A solemn Mass Oct. 16 at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer in Las Vegas formally celebrated the designation of the archdiocese and the appointment of Archbishop George Leo Thomas by Pope Francis May 30. The new metropolitan archdiocese and province of Las Vegas includes Reno, Nevada, and Salt Lake City as suffragan dioceses of the province. During the Mass, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the pope’s representative as apostolic nuncio to the United States, placed the pallium – a woolen liturgical garment worn by a metropolitan archbishop – upon Archbishop Thomas’ shoulders. The pallium represents a pastor’s care of his flock and his unity with the pope. Pope Francis gave the archbishop the pallium in June at the Vatican. The growth in the presence of Catholics in Las Vegas and southern Nevada was a key factor in its elevation to an archdiocese. The 350,000 Catholics among a total regional population of more than 1 million in 1995 has ballooned to an estimated 750,000 Catholics among more than 2 million residents today, according to the archdiocese. This growth was “a result of the dynamism and the vitality of the church here,” Cardinal Pierre told Massgoers.

Members of a tour group explore the catacombs of the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City Oct. 15, 2023. Tours of the historic basilica, its catacombs and cemetery have proven to be popular with New Yorkers and out-of-towners. (OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

NEW YORK (OSV News) – “Catacombs by Candlelight” perhaps conjures images of a subterranean tour in Rome led by a guide wearing a headlamp. In New York, it’s the name of a revenue-generating history lesson told while exploring the cemetery and burial vaults of one of the city’s oldest Catholic churches. At the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, the tour’s tone is respectful and the candles are battery-operated LED models. Frank Alfieri, the basilica’s director of cemetery and columbaria, said the tours were established in 2017 to communicate and monetize the historical significance of the property, which has been an active mainstay of the lower Manhattan area for more than 200 years. When it opened in 1815, St. Patrick’s served as New York’s first cathedral until the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was dedicated in 1879. The Old Cathedral was named a basilica in 2010. The catacombs were developed before the church was built above them and consist of 37 hermetically sealed family and group vaults arrayed along three 120-foot corridors. Most of the vaults have marble facades and bear the now-unfamiliar names of prominent 19th-century New York Catholics of Irish, German, French and Spanish heritage. Eight 80-minute tours are offered five days a week for groups as large as 40.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis will celebrate a memorial Mass Nov. 3 for Pope Benedict XVI and cardinals and bishops who have died in the past year. The Mass will take place at the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica at 11 a.m., the Vatican announced. Pope Benedict died Dec. 31 at the age of 95. The previous day, the Nov. 2 feast of All Souls, the pope will celebrate Mass at the Rome War Cemetery, the burial place of members of the military forces of the Commonwealth who died during and immediately after World War II. The 426 men buried there died between November 1942 and February 1947. They came from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa. Also on the pope’s liturgical calendar for November is his celebration of Mass for the World Day of the Poor. He will preside over the liturgy Nov. 19 in St. Peter’s Basilica.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis said a trip to his native Argentina remains on his schedule and that he has been encouraged to travel through Oceania. Asked by an Argentine reporter what important trips remain pending in his pontificate, the pope said “I would like to go” to Argentina in an interview released Oct. 16. “Talking a bit farther away, Papua New Guinea is still left.” He added that someone had told him, “Since I’m going to Argentina, to have a layover in Río Gallegos (Argentina), then the South Pole, land in Melbourne and visit New Zealand and Australia.” Though the 86-year-old pope said, “It would be a bit long.” In the wide-spanning interview recorded in September with the Argentine state news agency Télam, Pope Francis said that while he receives many invitations to visit countries and there is a list of possible papal trips, ideas for trips also originate from the Vatican, such as his Aug. 31-Sept. 4 trip to Mongolia. Pope Francis also spoke about the synod on synodality, relating it to the vision of St. John XXIII at the start of the Second Vatican Council. “It is not only about changing style, it is about a change of growth in favor of people’s dignity,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Huddled in a stairwell at the Catholic parish and school in Gaza, Rosary Sister Nabila Saleh, another sister and Father Youssef Asaad filmed themselves speaking to Pope Francis on the phone and begging for his continued prayers. Pope Francis phoned Holy Family parish – the only Catholic parish in Gaza – the evening of Oct. 15, Vatican News reported. Sister Saleh said Father Asaad passed her the phone because he doesn’t speak Italian as well as she does. After Hamas launched attacks on Israel Oct. 7 and Israel responded by bombing targets in Gaza, “the Holy Father wanted to know how many people we are hosting in the parish facilities,” Sister Saleh told Vatican News. There are about 500 people, including “the sick, families, children, the disabled, people who have lost their homes and every belonging.” Sister Saleh said, it was “a great blessing” to speak with the pope. “He gave us courage and the support of prayer.”

WORLD
NAIROBI, Kenya (OSV News) – On the day the world celebrates efforts to combat hunger and food insecurity, a bishop in Ethiopia was warning that his people were still dying of hunger, a year after a ceasefire ended a deadly conflict in the northern region of Tigray. Bishop Tesfasellassie Medhin of Adigrat said he wanted the world to know the situation in the region was still critical, and deaths were occurring due to serious food shortages and malnutrition. “The situation is very bad. Many parts of the region experienced failed harvests due to drought, and food aid distribution had also stopped,” Bishop Medhin told OSV News in an interview ahead of the World Food Day. “People are dying of hunger. The hospitals are also reporting increased cases of malnutrition. It is very frustrating.” More than 20 million people need food assistance in Africa’s second most populous nation after the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades and a two-year conflict in the Tigray region on top of it. On Oct. 16, the globe rallied to mark the World Food Day, an annual awareness and action day against hunger and malnutrition, reminding of the importance of food security and access to nutritious food for all. It also addresses the importance of sustainable agriculture and food production.

OSLO, Norway (OSV News) – Church leaders in Norway have welcomed the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Jon Fosse, a Catholic convert, predicting the honor could raise Catholicism’s profile in the traditionally Protestant country. “Fosse gives voice, with elegance and beauty, to the mystery of faith. … I think our country is blessed to have a poet of his stature,” said Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim. “A Catholic writer is someone who assimilated the grace of belonging to the church in such a way that it’s perfectly innate and natural to their self-expression. In that sense, Fosse is very much a Catholic writer.” The novelist and playwright will receive the 2023 prize in Stockholm Dec. 10. Born in 1959 at Haugesund on Norway’s west coast, Fosse has published over 30 novels, as well as poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations. His theater works, performed worldwide, have made him Norway’s most performed playwright since Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). Fosse was received into the Catholic Church at St. Dominic’s Monastery, Oslo, in 2012. His multivolume work, “Septology,” centering on a Catholic convert-painter, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize and National Books Critics Award. In a November 2022 interview with The New Yorker, Fosse described his style as “slow prose” and “mystical realism,” adding that he had turned to religious faith while struggling with alcoholism and other problems.

Synod call to communion can help a fractured world, theologian says

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Catholic Church is called to be an instrument of communion with God and unity among all people, but it requires grace and “learning to ‘bear with’ reality, gently, generously, lovingly and courageously for the peace and salvation of the whole world,” a theologian told the assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

“Communion is the beauty of diversity in unity. In a modern world that tends toward both homogenizing and fracturing, communion is a language of beauty, a harmony of unity and plurality,” said Anna Rowlands, a professor of Catholic social thought and practice at Durham University in England.

As synod participants began work on the second section or module of the assembly’s working document Oct. 9, their discussions about promoting communion with God and with others were preceded by reflections offered by Rowlands and by Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe, a theologian and former master of the Dominican order.

Participants pray in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall at the beginning of a working session of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops Oct. 10, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

While still seated at round tables according to language, many of the 364 synod members were at different tables than the week before. The new groupings were organized by the themes members indicated they wanted to work on; the topics including promoting unity through works of charity and justice; ecumenism; being more welcoming to people who feel excluded from the church, like members of the LGBTQ community; and valuing the cultural, linguistic and racial diversity of the church.

Pope Francis had been expected to attend the morning session, but “unforeseen commitments” arose, said Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office. While not saying what those commitments were, Bruni said Pope Francis was not one of the four synod members who were absent that day because they were diagnosed with COVID.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, introduced the module by telling participants that a key question from the synod’s preparatory process – which included listening sessions on the parish, diocesan, national and continental levels – was, “How can we be more fully a sign and instrument of union with God and of the unity of all humanity?”

God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is “the basis of all communions,” he said, and “this God, who is love, loves the whole of creation, every single creature and every human being in a special way.”

“All are invited to be part of the church,” the cardinal said. “In deep communion with his father through the Holy Spirit, Jesus extended this communion to all the sinners. Are we ready to do the same? Are we ready to do this with groups which might irritate us because their way of being might seem to threaten our identity?”

Father Radcliffe reminded participants that the issue of “formation,” which is broader than training or education, came up repeatedly in the synod’s first week discussions of how to promote a synodal church, one where people walk together, listen to each other and all take responsibility for mission.

“A synodal church will be one in which we are formed for unpossessive love: a love that neither flees the other person nor takes possession of them; a love that is neither abusive nor cold,” he said.

But too often, Father Radcliffe said, “what isolates us all is being trapped in small desires, little satisfactions, such as beating our opponents or having status, grand titles.”

Pope Francis prays in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall at the beginning of a working session of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops Oct. 6, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

“So many people feel excluded or marginalized in our church because we have slapped abstract labels on them: divorced and remarried, gay people, polygamous people, refugees, Africans, Jesuits,” the Dominican said to laughter. “A friend said to me the other day: ‘I hate labels. I hate people being put in boxes. I cannot abide these conservatives.'”

Rowlands told the synod members and participants that it is in the Eucharist that the different imensions of communion meet because “this is the place where the communion of the faithful is made manifest (and) where we receive the gifts of God for God’s people. The sacramental order teaches us, by feeding us, communion.”

Briefs

NATION
BRICK, N.J. (OSV News) – An air of both excitement and reverence permeated the parish community of St. Dominic in Brick, Oct. 1, when some 1,200 worshippers gathered throughout the church complex to witness the dedication by Bishop David M. O’Connell of Trenton of a new Diocesan Shrine to Blessed Carlo Acutis and to pray with his mother, Antonia Salzano Acutis, who was visiting from Italy. Blessed Carlo was 15 when he died from leukemia Oct. 12, 2006. He had a deep devotion to the Eucharist and became known for developing a website catalog of Eucharistic miracles. He was declared venerable in 2018 and beatified in 2020. He became the first millennial to be beatified by the church. In his homily, Bishop O’Connell used the day’s Gospel to emphasize how all are called to do the right thing for the right reason. “It’s not simply a matter of our words or what we say but rather, what we do that makes a difference in life.” After the final blessing, Antonia Acutis, Bishop O’Connell and the clergy processed out of the church to the shrine for the dedication ceremony. Following the dedication, Antonia Acutis returned to the church to address the congregation. “God wants us to be awakened toward the Eucharist,” she said. Using her son’s well-known quote, “The Eucharist is the highway to heaven.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Over 3,000 pilgrims from across the United States filled the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington Sept. 30, drawn by a shared love of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the rosary. The first annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage included a day of preaching, confessions and music, culminating in a chanted rosary procession and the celebration of Mass. Nine months ago, when the Dominican friars of the Province of St. Joseph first issued an invitation to “unite … to confidently seek the intercession of Our Lady,” American Catholics responded in force. Lay pilgrims were joined by more than 80 Dominican friars and over 50 religious sisters from communities across the U.S. “I was completely overwhelmed by the joy and enthusiasm demonstrated by pilgrims,” said Dominican Father Patrick Mary Briscoe, who helped plan the pilgrimage and served as master of ceremonies for the day. “One of the best parts of the day was the demand for confessors. Many, many people sought access to the sacraments. … Pilgrims were evidently moved by the experience.”

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Christian life is a battle each person must fight against the temptation to be self-sufficient and against a paganism disguised as sacredness, Pope Francis said in an introduction to a small book distributed to participants at the synod on synodality. Such “spiritual worldliness,” he wrote, “though it be camouflaged with the appearance of the sacred, it ends up being idolatrous because it does not recognize the presence of God as Lord and liberator of our lives and of the history of the world. It leaves us prey to our capricious desires.” The booklet contains two republished essays by the pope that are “united by the concern, which I feel to be a loud call from God to the entire church, to remain vigilant and to fight with the strength of prayer against every concession to spiritual worldliness,” he wrote in the introduction. Titled, “Holy, Not Worldly: God’s Grace Saves Us From Interior Corruption,” the booklet was released by the Dicastery for Communication and the Vatican publishing house Oct. 6 and was offered to the more than 350 participants attending the afternoon session of the Synod of Bishops on synodality. “I offer these texts to the reader as an opportunity to reflect on his life and on the life of the church, with the conviction that God asks us to be open to His newness, he asks us to be unquiet and never satisfied, searching and never stuck in comfortable opacity, not defended within the walls of false certainties, but walking on the road of holiness,” the pope wrote in the introduction.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As Catholic young people around the world prepare for the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis has asked them to focus on hope. Before the Jubilee of Young People, which will be part of the Holy Year celebration, and the next international celebration of World Youth Day in 2027 in Seoul, South Korea, dioceses around the world are to celebrate World Youth Day on a local level on the feast of Christ the King. The Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life announced Sept. 26 that Pope Francis had chosen as the theme for the upcoming Nov. 26 celebration “Rejoicing in hope,” from Romans 12:12. And for World Youth Day Nov. 24, 2024, he chose: “Those who hope in the Lord will run and not be weary,” drawing from the Lord’s promise in Isaiah 40:31.

An aerial view shows restoration work under way July 18, 2023, at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was badly damaged in a devastating fire in 2019. (OSV News photo/Pascal Rossignol, Reuters)

WORLD
PARIS (OSV News) – By the end of the year, the Notre Dame Cathedral silhouette will be restored: Its entire 315-foot-high spire will once again crown the transept crossing, hidden beneath a 330-foot-high scaffolding. The biggest reconstruction in France’s modern history is “a sign of hope for everyone,” the rector-archpriest of Notre Dame Cathedral, Father Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, told OSV News. A Sept. 13 statement by the public institution Rebâtir Notre-Dame de Paris (Rebuilding of Notre Dame) mentions “spectacular results” and that progress is on schedule for the cathedral’s reopening Dec. 8, 2024, as initially announced. The spire collapsed dramatically during the fire that devastated France and the world on April 15, 2019, destroying part of the nave vaults and the transept crossing. Once rebuilt, the transept crossing vaults will be reassembled, like the other vaults already rebuilt or consolidated. The spire will be gradually unveiled over the first half of 2024, when it is covered with its roof to protect the wooden framework. In 2018, before the fire, there were close to 12 million visitors a year to Notre Dame. An estimated 14 million to 15 million a year are expected once the cathedral reopens. About 340,000 donors from 150 countries raised almost $900 million in donations. Among them are thousands of Americans, especially through the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris foundation.

MEXICO CITY (OSV News) – A Nicaraguan priest has been reported kidnapped from his parish residence as the country’s increasingly totalitarian regime continues cracking down on the Catholic Church and silencing all dissenting voices. Father Álvaro Toledo was taken by police at 10:30 p.m. local time on Oct. 5, according to a Facebook post from Radio Stereo Fe, which belongs to the Diocese of Estelí. Father Toledo was identified on social media as pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Ocotal. His abduction marked the latest in a wave of kidnappings carried out against priests in the Estelí Diocese, located in the country’s northwest, where imprisoned bishop Rolando Álvarez is apostolic administrator. Three other priests in the diocese have been reported abducted from their parishes in less than a week. Father Ivan Centeno, pastor of Immaculate Conception of Mary Parish in Jalapa, and Father Julio Norori, pastor at St. John the Evangelist Parish in San Juan del Río Coco, were abducted Oct. 1 by plain-clothed individuals. Nicaragua media later reported Father Cristóbal Gadea, pastor of the Our Lady of Mercy in the Diocese of Jinotega, was also abducted on the night of Oct. 1. The priest was lured from his parish residence and arrested, according to 100% Noticias.

Briefs

NATION
BRICK, N.J. (OSV News) – An air of both excitement and reverence permeated the parish community of St. Dominic in Brick, Oct. 1, when some 1,200 worshippers gathered throughout the church complex to witness the dedication by Bishop David M. O’Connell of Trenton of a new Diocesan Shrine to Blessed Carlo Acutis and to pray with his mother, Antonia Salzano Acutis, who was visiting from Italy. Blessed Carlo was 15 when he died from leukemia Oct. 12, 2006. He had a deep devotion to the Eucharist and became known for developing a website catalog of Eucharistic miracles. He was declared venerable in 2018 and beatified in 2020. He became the first millennial to be beatified by the church. In his homily, Bishop O’Connell used the day’s Gospel to emphasize how all are called to do the right thing for the right reason. “It’s not simply a matter of our words or what we say but rather, what we do that makes a difference in life.” After the final blessing, Antonia Acutis, Bishop O’Connell and the clergy processed out of the church to the shrine for the dedication ceremony. Following the dedication, Antonia Acutis returned to the church to address the congregation. “God wants us to be awakened toward the Eucharist,” she said. Using her son’s well-known quote, “The Eucharist is the highway to heaven.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Over 3,000 pilgrims from across the United States filled the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington Sept. 30, drawn by a shared love of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the rosary. The first annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage included a day of preaching, confessions and music, culminating in a chanted rosary procession and the celebration of Mass. Nine months ago, when the Dominican friars of the Province of St. Joseph first issued an invitation to “unite … to confidently seek the intercession of Our Lady,” American Catholics responded in force. Lay pilgrims were joined by more than 80 Dominican friars and over 50 religious sisters from communities across the U.S. “I was completely overwhelmed by the joy and enthusiasm demonstrated by pilgrims,” said Dominican Father Patrick Mary Briscoe, who helped plan the pilgrimage and served as master of ceremonies for the day. “One of the best parts of the day was the demand for confessors. Many, many people sought access to the sacraments. … Pilgrims were evidently moved by the experience.”

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Christian life is a battle each person must fight against the temptation to be self-sufficient and against a paganism disguised as sacredness, Pope Francis said in an introduction to a small book distributed to participants at the synod on synodality. Such “spiritual worldliness,” he wrote, “though it be camouflaged with the appearance of the sacred, it ends up being idolatrous because it does not recognize the presence of God as Lord and liberator of our lives and of the history of the world. It leaves us prey to our capricious desires.” The booklet contains two republished essays by the pope that are “united by the concern, which I feel to be a loud call from God to the entire church, to remain vigilant and to fight with the strength of prayer against every concession to spiritual worldliness,” he wrote in the introduction. Titled, “Holy, Not Worldly: God’s Grace Saves Us From Interior Corruption,” the booklet was released by the Dicastery for Communication and the Vatican publishing house Oct. 6 and was offered to the more than 350 participants attending the afternoon session of the Synod of Bishops on synodality. “I offer these texts to the reader as an opportunity to reflect on his life and on the life of the church, with the conviction that God asks us to be open to His newness, he asks us to be unquiet and never satisfied, searching and never stuck in comfortable opacity, not defended within the walls of false certainties, but walking on the road of holiness,” the pope wrote in the introduction.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As Catholic young people around the world prepare for the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis has asked them to focus on hope. Before the Jubilee of Young People, which will be part of the Holy Year celebration, and the next international celebration of World Youth Day in 2027 in Seoul, South Korea, dioceses around the world are to celebrate World Youth Day on a local level on the feast of Christ the King. The Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life announced Sept. 26 that Pope Francis had chosen as the theme for the upcoming Nov. 26 celebration “Rejoicing in hope,” from Romans 12:12. And for World Youth Day Nov. 24, 2024, he chose: “Those who hope in the Lord will run and not be weary,” drawing from the Lord’s promise in Isaiah 40:31.

An aerial view shows restoration work under way July 18, 2023, at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was badly damaged in a devastating fire in 2019. (OSV News photo/Pascal Rossignol, Reuters)

WORLD
PARIS (OSV News) – By the end of the year, the Notre Dame Cathedral silhouette will be restored: Its entire 315-foot-high spire will once again crown the transept crossing, hidden beneath a 330-foot-high scaffolding. The biggest reconstruction in France’s modern history is “a sign of hope for everyone,” the rector-archpriest of Notre Dame Cathedral, Father Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, told OSV News. A Sept. 13 statement by the public institution Rebâtir Notre-Dame de Paris (Rebuilding of Notre Dame) mentions “spectacular results” and that progress is on schedule for the cathedral’s reopening Dec. 8, 2024, as initially announced. The spire collapsed dramatically during the fire that devastated France and the world on April 15, 2019, destroying part of the nave vaults and the transept crossing. Once rebuilt, the transept crossing vaults will be reassembled, like the other vaults already rebuilt or consolidated. The spire will be gradually unveiled over the first half of 2024, when it is covered with its roof to protect the wooden framework. In 2018, before the fire, there were close to 12 million visitors a year to Notre Dame. An estimated 14 million to 15 million a year are expected once the cathedral reopens. About 340,000 donors from 150 countries raised almost $900 million in donations. Among them are thousands of Americans, especially through the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris foundation.

MEXICO CITY (OSV News) – A Nicaraguan priest has been reported kidnapped from his parish residence as the country’s increasingly totalitarian regime continues cracking down on the Catholic Church and silencing all dissenting voices. Father Álvaro Toledo was taken by police at 10:30 p.m. local time on Oct. 5, according to a Facebook post from Radio Stereo Fe, which belongs to the Diocese of Estelí. Father Toledo was identified on social media as pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Ocotal. His abduction marked the latest in a wave of kidnappings carried out against priests in the Estelí Diocese, located in the country’s northwest, where imprisoned bishop Rolando Álvarez is apostolic administrator. Three other priests in the diocese have been reported abducted from their parishes in less than a week. Father Ivan Centeno, pastor of Immaculate Conception of Mary Parish in Jalapa, and Father Julio Norori, pastor at St. John the Evangelist Parish in San Juan del Río Coco, were abducted Oct. 1 by plain-clothed individuals. Nicaragua media later reported Father Cristóbal Gadea, pastor of the Our Lady of Mercy in the Diocese of Jinotega, was also abducted on the night of Oct. 1. The priest was lured from his parish residence and arrested, according to 100% Noticias.

10 things to know about October’s Synod on Synodality in Rome

By Maria Wiering
(OSV News) – The eyes of the Catholic world turn to Rome Oct. 4, as the worldwide Synod of Bishops convenes on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi to focus on “synodality” and understanding what it means in terms of “communion, participation and mission” in the church. Here’s what it is, how we got here and what to expect.

– 1. The Synod on Synodality is three years in the making.
Pope Francis announced in March 2020 (at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in Italy) that the next Synod of Bishops would be held in October 2022 on the theme “For a synodal church: communion, participation and mission,” which quickly became known as the “Synod on Synodality.” In May 2021, he postponed the two-part meeting to 2023 (with a second gathering in 2024), due in part to the pandemic, and announced that it would be preceded by a two-year process.

That decision reflected Pope Francis’ vision for the Synod of Bishops outlined in the 2018 apostolic constitution “Episcopalis Communio,” including what Cardinal Mario Grech, the general secretary for the Synod of Bishops, described at the time as “transforming the Synod from an event into a process.” Pope Francis officially opened the “synodal path” with a Mass Oct. 10, 2021, with dioceses around the world following suit.

– 2. Synodality is “the action of the Spirit in the communion of the Body of Christ and in the missionary journey of the People of God.”
Despite the long history of synods in the church, the term “synodality” is relatively recent, emerging in church documents about two decades ago. In 2018, the topic was addressed by the International Theological Commission, which defined it as “the action of the Spirit in the communion of the Body of Christ and in the missionary journey of the People of God.”

Synodality was also a topic of conversation at the 15th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme “Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment” that took place in 2018.

In the Synod on Synodality’s “vademecum,” an official handbook issued in September 2021, “synodality” is described as “the particular style that qualifies the life and mission of the hurch, expressing her nature as the People of God journeying together and gathering in assembly, summoned by the Lord Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel,” adding, “Synodality ought to be expressed in the church’s ordinary way of living and working.”

In his homily for the Mass opening the synod process, Pope Francis said, “Celebrating a synod means walking on the same road, walking together.” He said that when meeting others, Jesus would “encounter, listen and discern,” and those verbs “characterize the synod.”

“The Gospels frequently show us Jesus ‘on a journey’; he walks alongside people and listens to the questions and concerns lurking in their hearts,” he said. “He shows us that God is not found in neat and orderly places, distant from reality, but walks ever at our side. He meets us where we are, on the often rocky roads of life.”

He continued: “Today, as we begin this synodal process, let us begin by asking ourselves – all of us, pope, bishops, priests, religious and laity – whether we, the Christian community, embody this ‘style’ of God, who travels the paths of history and shares in the life of humanity. Are we prepared for the adventure of this journey? Or are we fearful of the unknown, preferring to take refuge in the usual excuses: ‘It’s useless’ or ‘We’ve always done it this way’?”

– 3. A synod is a meeting of bishops. It has ancient roots in the Catholic Church’s history and continuity in the Eastern Churches, but declined in the Latin Church. The modern Synod of Bishops was instituted near the end of Vatican II.
“Synod” has been historically interchangeable with “council,” such as the churchwide Council of Nicea or the Council of Trent, or more localized meetings, such as the Plenary Councils of Baltimore, which brought the U.S. bishops together in 1852, 1866 and 1884. The late Jesuit Father John W. O’Malley, a theologian at Georgetown University, noted in a February 2022 essay for America magazine that local councils declined in use following the First Vatican Council, which defined papal primacy, but they didn’t die out: “One of the first things that the future Pope John XXIII did when he became patriarch of Venice was to call a diocesan synod,” he wrote.

The idea for a permanent bishops’ council surfaced during the Second Vatican Council, and in 1965 St. Paul VI established the Synod of Bishops with “the function of providing information and offering advice.” “It can also enjoy the power of making decisions when such power is conferred upon it by the Roman Pontiff; in this case, it belongs to him to ratify the decisions of the Synod,” St. Paul VI wrote.

– 4. The Synod on Synodality is the 16th Ordinary Synod since the global Synod of Bishops’ institution.
Three extraordinary general assemblies have also been held, including in 2014 to complete the work of the 2015 ordinary general assembly on the family. An additional 11 special Synods of Bishops have been held to address issues facing a particular region. Among them was a special synod on America in 1997 and one on the Amazon region in 2019. Synods have regularly resulted in the pope, who serves as the synod president, writing a post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

– 5. Preparations for the Synod on Synodality sought to be the most extensive ever, with an invitation to every Catholic to provide input.
An unprecedented worldwide consultation occurred at the diocesan/national and continental levels. The synod’s two-year preparation process invited all Catholics worldwide to identify areas where the church needed to give greater attention and discernment. That feedback was gathered and synthesized by dioceses and then episcopal conferences, before being brought to the continental level. The syntheses from episcopal conferences and continental-level meetings were shared with the Holy See, and they informed a working document known as an “Instrumentum Laboris” for the general assembly’s first session. The document’s authors describe it as “not a document of the Holy See, but of the whole church.” However, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ report indicates that only about 700,000 Catholics in the U.S. participated, representing just over 1% of the U.S. Catholic population of 66.8 million.

– 6. The Synod on Synodality’s objective boils down to answering a two-part question.
According to the vademecum, “The current Synodal Process we are undertaking is guided by a fundamental question: How does this ‘journeying together’ take place today on different levels (from the local level to the universal one), allowing the church to proclaim the Gospel? and what steps is the Spirit inviting us to take in order to grow as a synodal church?”

The working document released in June to guide general assembly participants includes many other reflection questions; but it particularly asks participants to reflect on these priorities, guided by its focus on communion, participation and mission: “How can we be more fully a sign and instrument of union with God and of the unity of all humanity?”; “How can we better share gifts and tasks in the service of the Gospel?”; and “What processes, structures and institutions are needed in a missionary synodal church?”

– 7. For the first time ever, non-bishops – including lay men and women – have a vote in the synod.
The synod’s general assembly includes more than 450 participants – 363 of whom are voting members – with leaders from the Vatican curia and episcopal conferences. More than a quarter of synod members are non-bishops, including laypeople, who for the first time will have a vote during synod deliberations. A deliberate effort was made to include women and young adults. As of July 7, when the Vatican released the initial list, the number of voting women was the same as participating cardinals: 54. The list was subject to change ahead of the synod, organizers said.

In previous synods, some non-bishop participants held the non-voting role of “auditor,” which has been eliminated at this assembly, although some attendees will be non-voting observers, called “special envoys,” or non-voting facilitators or advisers.

The presence of “non-bishops,” according to Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod’s general relator, in a letter published at the time the change was announced, “ensures the dialogue between the prophecy of the people of God and the discernment of the pastors.”

– 8. More than 20 Catholics from the United States have been invited to participate.
Participating American bishops chosen by Pope Francis are Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington, Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston and Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego, California.

Additional bishop-delegates selected by the USCCB and confirmed by Pope Francis are Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas; Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota; Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana; and Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, who leads the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, and serves as USCCB president.

American prelates Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, formerly the bishop of Dallas, are also delegates by nature of prior papal appointments. Cardinal Tobin is an ordinary member of the Synod of Bishops and Cardinal Farrell is prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

Pope Francis also nominated synod member Jesuit Father James Martin, editor-at-large for America magazine and founder of Outreach, a ministry for Catholics who identify as LGBTQ+.

Other U.S. delegates were nominated by the USCCB and confirmed by the pope. They include: Richard Coll, the executive director of the USCCB’s Department of Justice, Peace and Integral Human Development; Cynthia Bailey Manns, director of adult faith formation at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Minneapolis; Father Iván Montelongo of El Paso, Texas; Wyatt Olivas, a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming; Julia Oseka, a Polish student at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia; and Sister Leticia Salazar, a member of the Company of Mary, Our Lady and chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California.

USCCB-nominated delegates participated in the continental synod, and Coll, Bishop Flores and Sister Salazar were members of the 18-person North American Synod Team that prepared the North American continental synod report for the U.S. and Canada. Bishop Flores has been named one of nine delegate presidents of the assembly.

Sister Maria Cimperman, a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart and theologian at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and American Jesuit Father David McCallum, executive director of the Discerning Leadership Program in Rome, are among the 57 non-voting experts.

– 9. In the U.S., the meeting has been a source of great expectation and great apprehension.
The synod has inspired both great praise and deep criticism for its approach, including allowing laypeople to vote; its subject matter, which includes controversial topics such as leadership roles for women, ministry to Catholics who identify as LGBTQ+, and the relationship between laypeople and clergy. At least one cardinal expressed concern that the meeting could lead to confusion and error in church teaching.
However, Bishop Flores, speaking recently with OSV News, said the meeting aims to better understand people’s reality so it can better minister to them. “We can’t respond with the Gospel if we don’t know what the reality they’re facing is,” he said of people, especially those on margins and in difficult situations.

– 10. October’s meeting is just the beginning.
In an unusual move, the synod general assembly has been divided into two sessions, with the first Oct. 4-29, and the second planned for October 2024. The decision, announced in October 2022, has parallels to the Synod of Bishops on the Family, which met in 2014 for an extraordinary general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, and then continued its work the following year as an ordinary assembly. The work of both meetings culminated in the post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”), released in 2016.

Prior to the synod, Pope Francis presides over an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square Sept. 30. Synod participants attend a retreat Sept. 30-Oct. 3 in Sacrofano, about 16 miles north of Rome. The retreat includes morning meditations – offered by Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe of the United Kingdom and the Benedictine Rev. Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini of Italy – afternoon small-groups and Mass.

Meanwhile, the Taizé community and other organizations have organized a meeting in Rome that weekend called “Together – Gathering of the People of God” for young people to pray for the synod.
The synod’s general assembly opens Oct. 4 with a papal Mass that includes the new cardinals created at a Sept. 30 consistory. Among them is expected to be Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

(Maria Wiering is senior writer for OSV News.)

Briefs

NATION
LOS ANGELES (OSV News) – A recent court ruling has become another bend in a “rollercoaster” ride for hundreds of thousands of individuals who arrived in the U.S. as children without legal permission, said an immigration expert. On Sept. 13, a federal judge in Texas found the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program unlawful. DACA was created in 2012 under the Obama administration. According to a March 2023 report by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 578,680 people are beneficiaries of DACA. Ilissa Mira, a senior attorney with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., or CLINIC, said DACA recipients can continue to file renewal applications and their employment authorizations. She added they will do so “with this thing that’s still gonna continue to loom over their heads – this uncertainty about what will happen to DACA in the long run. So it’s still a situation where the clock is ticking for them.” Carlos Alberto Méndez Velázquez told OSV News he knows that anxiety all too well. The 33-year-old Los Angeles resident, a filmmaker, said he wants the government to give DACA recipients like him a path out of their immigration limbo, especially since he and fellow DACA recipients generate jobs and contribute to the nation’s prosperity.

Pictured is one bead from a living rosary prayed in memory of Ethan Gerads Sept. 3, 2023, at Seven Dolors Church in Albany, Minn. Ethan, 16, was killed in a car accident July 21, a short time after he helped make the rosary. (OSV News photo/Dianne Towalski, The Central Minnesota Catholic)

ALBANY, Minn. (OSV News) – Earlier this summer, Jeff Gerads volunteered to construct a giant rosary for the Harvest of Hope Area Catholic Community. When he invited his sons Ethan, 16, and Owen, 12, to help, he could never have known how special that rosary would become. Ethan was killed in a car accident July 21. Now that rosary and the community are helping the family, Jeff and his wife, Melissa, Owen and his sister, Emma, to cope with the loss. People from across the Harvest of Hope community, which includes the parishes in Albany, Avon, St. Martin and St. Anthony, in central Minnesota, gathered Sept. 3 at Seven Dolors in Albany to pray a special living rosary to remember Ethan using the rosary he helped make. Ethan was an usher and an altar server and would have been a junior this year at Albany High School. He grew up seeing his dad pray the rosary while they were hunting and had started bringing his own rosary on hunting trips, Jeff said. “The four parishes each have an identity, but then an event like this happens and we discover something that we hold in common,” said Deacon Steven Koop, who is assigned to the Harvest of Hope community. “And that is how much we love family, how much we respect one another.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The American public’s views of the family are “complicated” and becoming “more pessimistic than optimistic about the institution of marriage and the family,” according to a new report from Pew Research Center. Social and legal changes in recent decades have increased the variety of households in the United States, data shows. A growing share of U.S. adults in recent decades have either delayed or foregone marriage, according to Pew’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. The survey about the future of the country found that when asked about marriage and family, 40% of Americans said they are very or somewhat pessimistic about the institution of marriage and the family. Just 25% are very or somewhat optimistic. Another 29% said they are neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Just 23% of Americans called being married as either extremely or very important to living a fulfilling life, while just 26% said the same of having children. Those trends hold across religious groups. Just 22% of Catholics identified marriage as either extremely or very important to living a fulfilling life; 31% said the same about having children. When asked to rank what factors were extremely or very important for a fulfilling life, most Americans pointed to career satisfaction (71%) and having close friends (61%). Most Catholics ranked having a job or career they enjoy (77%) and having close friends (59%) as extremely or very important to living a fulfilling life.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – On the recommendation of the Catholic bishops of mainland China in consultation with the Chinese government, Pope Francis has named two bishops from the country’s mainland as members of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Bishop Joseph Yang Yongqiang of Zhoucun, who has served as vice president of the government-related Council of Chinese Bishops, and Bishop Anthony Yao Shun of Jining, the first bishop ordained after the Vatican and China signed a provisional agreement on the nomination of bishops in 2018, will be among the 365 synod members, a number which includes the pope, the Vatican said. The Vatican released an updated list Sept. 21 of people expected to participate in the assembly of the Synod of Bishops Oct. 4-19. A list released in July included Cardinal-designate Stephen Chow Sau-Yan of Hong Kong, but no bishop from the Chinese mainland. Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, undersecretary of the synod, told reporters that 464 people are expected to be involved in the synod, including 54 women participating as full members and 27 women joining as experts, facilitators or special guests.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican urged members of the U.N. Security Council to be “creative and courageous artisans of peace and weavers of constructive dialogue” to find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine. Addressing a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York Sept. 20, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister, said today the “entire international community, more than ever, cannot surrender itself and let this issue pass in silence.” He said “all member states of the United Nations, and especially those of the Security Council, are called upon to join efforts in the search for a just and lasting peace for Ukraine as an important element of the global peace of which the world thirsts.” The Security Council meeting included a speech from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who criticized the council’s structure which gives five countries the power to veto any council resolution or decision, saying that Russia’s misuse of the veto power is “to the detriment of all other U.N. members.” Archbishop Gallagher did not discuss the subject of veto power, but said it is “undeniable that the Russian attack on Ukraine has jeopardized the entire global order which arose after World War II.”

WORLD
ABUJA, Nigeria (OSV News) – In another chapter of an “evil scheme” plaguing Nigeria, the southern Enugu Diocese asked for prayers for Father Marcellinus Obioma Okide, who was kidnapped Sept. 17. The priest was reportedly abducted on his way to St. Mary Amofia-Agu Affa Parish, where he serves as a parish priest. Six other people who were traveling with him were also kidnapped. In a Sept. 18 release sent to OSV News, Father Wilfred Chidi Agubuchie, the diocesan chancellor and secretary confirmed the abductions, and called on the Christian community to pray for the priest’s safe release and “a change of heart on the part of the kidnappers.” Christians in Africa’s largest nation have become prized targets for terrorist groups such as Fulani herdsmen, according to Emeka Umeagbalasi, chairman of Intersociety, a nongovernmental human rights organization. He said 22 communities and villages have been under the siege of the jihadist Fulani herdsmen and other assembled jihadists since 2022, accusing the government of former President, Muhammaru Buhari of using such Fulani attacks to enhance an agenda of “Islamizing Nigeria.” Johan Viljoen, Director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute of the South Africa Catholic bishops’ conference told OSV News that “the situation in Enugu is particularly severe. Enugu state shares a border with Benue state, which has been under sustained attack.”

MEXICO CITY (OSV News) – Dominican Brother Obed Cuellar has seen large numbers of migrants arrive daily in the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras, where they plan to cross the Rio Grande into neighboring Eagle Pass, Texas. But there’s still space available in the diocesan-run migrant shelter. “They head straight for the river,” he told OSV News. An estimated 2,200 migrants crossed the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass in the early morning hours of Sept. 18, one of the largest massive crossings on record, according to Fox News. It’s a scene playing at other crossings across the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border as migrants arrive in increasingly large numbers, straining the resources of migrant-assistance organizations and U.S. border patrol officials alike. The U.S. Border Patrol recorded more than 177,000 arrests in August, according to the Washington Post – roughly a 30% increase from the 132,652 migrants detained in July. The sharp increase in arrests followed a jump from 99,539 detentions in June – the month following the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era health provision which allowed for the immediate expulsion of migrants to Mexico. A record number of families also were taken into custody by Border Patrol in August, according to the Post. Analysts say the urge to migrate remains strong – with many people coming from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. Some migrants are allowed entry into the U.S. and receive notices to appear in court. But many are sent back to Mexico and transported to destinations in southern states far from the United States border.

LAMPEDUSA, Italy (OSV News) – In front of the Church of St. Gerland on the Italian island of Lampedusa, dozens of migrants lined up Sept. 14 in a neat row, one after the other. The queue was long as they waited patiently. More than 130 Red Cross employees and volunteers were working day and night to provide migrants not only with sanitary assistance, but also with a warm meal. They prepared 5,000 portions at noon and a similar amount for dinner. From Sept. 12 to Sept. 13, 7,000 migrants reached Lampedusa, an Italian island once visited by Pope Francis as his first apostolic trip destination in July 2013. On Sept. 13, authorities said a record number of 120 fragile boats arrived on the island within 24 hours. “If you count all of us here on the island we are just 5,000 inhabitants,” former Mayor Totò Martello told journalists, when, together with other people of goodwill, he rolled up his sleeves and offered the outstretched hand of another refugee a plate of pasta al pomodoro. “There haven’t been that many people here ever before probably,” 80-year-old Salvatore, who only gave his first name, told OSV News, but “at least there is a relative order here close to the church.” So far in 2023, nearly 126,000 migrants have arrived in Italy, almost double the figure by the same time in 2022. Those desperately trying to reach Europe came mainly from Africa’s Guinea, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, but also from Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Briefs

NATION
HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, N.J. (OSV News) – For an Archdiocese of Newark deacon who survived the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the real battle – a search for God – began after reaching the ground. Now-Deacon Paul Carris was a 46-year-old civil engineer working in the World Trade Center’s North Tower when al-Qaida hijackers slammed American Airlines Flight 11 into the building. The deacon, who described himself as a rather indifferent Catholic layman at the time, accompanied a fellow floormate with severe health issues down 71 flights of steps to safety, even as the building burned and the South Tower was struck by a second plane. The pair were among the last to safely exit the building before it collapsed. In the following days and weeks after the terrorist attacks, he wrestled with anger and frustration that pointed to an unfulfilled hunger for a deeper relationship with God. Over the years, he immersed himself in faith formation and social outreach, eventually discerning a call to the permanent diaconate. Now assigned to Corpus Christi Parish in Hasbrouck Heights, he told OSV News that surviving 9/11 gave him “a rock of a foundation, knowing that God is here. I have no questions about the reality of God and the reality of God in everybody’s life. But unfortunately, we sometimes have to go through tragedy to wake us up to open that door.”

CHICAGO (OSV News) – St. Jude may be best known in the United States for being the patron saint of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, a cancer treatment center founded by Lebanese-American entertainer Danny Thomas. Thomas credited St. Jude – also well known among Catholics as the patron saint of hopeless causes and desperate situations – with reviving his career during a particularly low moment. He founded the hospital in gratitude. Now more Catholics are going to learn about this faithful apostle, martyr and saint as his relic – bone fragments from an arm believed to be his – leaves Italy for the first time in centuries, sponsored by the Treasures of the Church ministry, for a tour that extends into May 2024. The tour begins in Chicago on Sept. 9 at St. John Cantius Church. Scheduled stops for the remainder of 2023 include parishes in Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa, followed by Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska, Indiana and Michigan. The relic’s tour then veers east to parishes in Ohio and central Pennsylvania – some 45 parishes. There are to be 100 stops in all. The 2024 stops into May have not yet been announced. At each parish, there will be public veneration and special Masses. The detailed St. Jude relic tour schedule is available at apostleoftheimpossible.com.

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – Archbishop William E. Lori told Catholics Sept. 5 that the Archdiocese of Baltimore is considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization as one option to deal with lawsuits expected to be filed when the state’s Child Victims Act takes effect Oct. 1. The law, passed by the Maryland General Assembly earlier this year, removed any statute of limitations for civil suits involving child sexual abuse. It caps suits against public institutions such as government schools at $890,000, and for private individuals or institutions such as churches at $1.5 million. The previous law allowed such suits for people up to age 38, an increase from the previous age limit of 25. At the time, the Maryland Catholic Conference – which includes the Archdiocese of Baltimore as well as the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, which both include Maryland counties – supported the increase to age 38. In his Sept. 5 letter, the archbishop said he has two overarching goals as the archdiocese considers its response: “the healing of victim-survivors who have suffered so profoundly from the actions of some ministers of the church” and “the continuation and furtherance of the many ministries of the Archdiocese that provide for the spiritual, educational, and social needs of countless people – Catholic and non-Catholic – across the state.” The archbishop said he plans to prioritize both goals.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – If people can learn how to inflict suffering on others with ever more deadly weapons, they also can learn to stop doing so, Pope Francis said. “If we can hurt someone, a relative or friend, with harsh words and vindictive gestures, we can also choose not to do so,” he added. “Learning the lexicon of peace means restoring the value of dialogue, the practice of kindness and respect for others.” Marking International Literacy Day, Pope Francis sent a message to Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, encouraging efforts to teach reading and writing to the hundreds of millions of people in the world who do not have basic literacy skills, but he also focused on the education needed to help all people contribute to building sustainable and peaceful societies. The papal message, was published by the Vatican Sept. 8, International Literacy Day.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Any limitations and rules regarding media access and communications during the upcoming Synod of Bishops are rooted in the “essence” of a synod and meant to help participants in their process of discernment, said the head of the synod’s communication committee. “The way in which we are going to share information about the synod is very important for the discernment process and for the entire church,” Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, told reporters at a Vatican news conference Sept. 8. Some of the “few rules regarding communication” stem from “the essence of the synod,” he said, which Pope Francis has repeatedly underlined is not a “parliament” or convention but a journey of listening and walking together in accordance with the Holy Spirit. However, Ruffini said, some portions of the synod will be livestreamed and open to Vatican accredited reporters: – Mass in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 4 to open the assembly of the Synod of Bishops. – The first general congregation, which begins that afternoon with remarks by Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the synod, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, and Pope Francis. – The moment of prayer beginning each general congregation. – The opening sessions of each of the five segments or “modules” into which the synod will be divided.

WORLD
MEXICO CITY (OSV News) – Mexico’s Supreme Court has removed abortion restrictions on national level – a decision expanding access to abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy across the country. The high court granted an injunction Sept. 6, requiring federally operated hospitals and health facilities to provide abortion services. The decision also scrapped criminal penalties for physicians and health professionals performing abortions. One of the litigants, the Information Group on Reproductive Choice (known by its Spanish acronym GIRE), called the unanimous court decision “a historic milestone,” as more than 70% percent of Mexican women have access to Mexico’s federal health system. That health system includes the Mexican Social Security Institute – the largest in Latin America which covers salaried workers, along with systems for public employees and the poor. Pro-life groups decried the decision. “It is an attack on the lives of the most defenseless, innocent and vulnerable,” The National Front for the Family said via X, previously known as Twitter, calling the decision “supreme injustice.”

SÃO PAULO (OSV News) – Church activists in the Amazon are worried about the Brazilian government’s plan to exploit oil in a marine area close to the mouth of the Amazon River. Oil drilling, an issue discussed in different meetings over the past months by ecclesial movements and environmentalists, has been a problem in several regions of the Amazon. While there was relevant progress recently in the struggle to restrain the oil companies’ operations in the rainforest, the pressure from those corporations is immense, and it will take much effort from Catholics inspired by Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si’” encyclical to secure the protection ‘ of their “common home” in the Amazon, activists say. The project of exploiting oil about 300 miles northeast from Amazon River’s mouth has put top government officials on opposite sides: On one side is Environment Minister Marina Silva, who argues that technical studies showed that the operation would have a huge impact on the environment and local communities, and on the other is most of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s cabinet. Lula is himself among the ones who think that it is possible to go on with the project without harming the environment. The plan was among the topics discussed by Lula and the presidents of the other nations of the Pan-Amazon region during an Aug. 8-9 summit in Belem, in Brazil. The region consists of nine countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Suriname, Guiana and French Guiana. “The summit’s final document failed to address key elements concerning extractivism in the Amazon. All decisions should be unanimous and there was no consensus on those issues,” explained Father Dario Bossi, a member of the Integral Ecology and Mining Commission of the bishops’ conference.