VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The input and feedback coming from those taking part in the synodal journey underway around the world have inspired feelings of gratitude, hope and deeper faith for the many people involved with the process, said a panel of officials and organizers for the Synod of Bishops.
Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, said organizers are seeing “a church that is alive, in need of authenticity, healing and that increasingly yearns to be a community that celebrates and proclaims the joy of the Gospel, learning to walk and discern together.”
He and others spoke to reporters at a Vatican news conference Aug. 26, updating the results of the concluded first phase of the synodal process.
Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, relator general of the synod, said that reading the syntheses from the episcopal conferences and other major organizations representing the church “has produced in me, as a disciple of Christ and as a bishop, a great spiritual consolation that opens up to a great hope. This hope must now be transformed into missionary dynamism.”
The Synod of Bishops’ office has received the summaries from more than 100 of the world’s 114 bishops’ conferences, “and they are still arriving. This incredible figure tells us that yes, the church is in synod!” he said.
The world’s bishops’ conferences were asked to send in reports by mid-August synthesizing the experiences, questions, discussions and insights that emerged from their parishes and dioceses.
The Good News is healing and empowering. People of goodwill are hungering and thirsting for the Good News .
If the church is alive, it can thank
people like Archbishop Cordileone
of the U.S. for his heroic stance on
the subject of abortion in the face
of the state religion of the U.S.,
which is Secular Humanism.
“The Christian of the future will
be a MYSTIC OR NOT EXIST AT ALL”
Fr Karl Rahner SJ. Former advisor
to Vatican II.