Posted on 09/19/2021 6:18:56 PM PDT by ebb tide
COMMENTARY: The planetary process leading up to the 2023 synod has to confront two major challenges before it begins.
Six weeks before the Catholic Church-wide consultations for the 2023 synod on synodality are set to begin, the Vatican released a vademecum, or “handbook,” that will guide a process that is supposed to occupy every single diocese in the world from October 2021 to April 2022.
The most massive set of meetings ever conducted in the history of the Catholic Church was announced only four months ago, between the third and fourth waves of the coronavirus pandemic in many parts of the world.
The vademecum did not address whether dioceses where the dispensation from the Sunday Mass obligation is still in force should be convening consultative meetings as part of a process to discuss the role of consultative meetings in the life of the Church.
The handbook listed “ten thematic nuclei,” including “journeying together,” “co-responsible in the mission” and “forming ourselves in synodality.” There is a mandate to consult with those who never come to church.
It is an ambitious plan, intended to be a “participative and inclusive ecclesial process that offers everyone — especially those who for various reasons find themselves on the margins — the opportunity to express themselves and to be heard in order to contribute to the edification of the People of God.”
The process suffers from two main challenges before it begins — credibility and practicality.
Recent synods have had something of a credibility problem in terms of how consultations were done. For example, the 2014 and 2015 Synods on the Family appeared to exclude certain views from among the participants — views that were the magisterial teaching of the Church.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
There is a mandate to consult with those who never come to church.
It is an ambitious plan, intended to be a “participative and inclusive ecclesial process that offers everyone — especially those who for various reasons find themselves on the margins — the opportunity to express themselves and to be heard in order to contribute to the edification of the People of God.”
Ping
It is a joke process just like those that have gone before.
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