At the XVI. Two bishops from the People’s Republic of China will also take part in the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod, which opens on October 4th. The announcement was made during yesterday’s presentation of the final list of participants. Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, explained that the two prelates were presented by the “local Church in agreement with the civil authorities” and that Pope Francis accepted and appointed them.
In total, according to Monsignor Marín, there will be 449 participants, 464 of whom are also counting the Secretariat employees. The total voting members of the synod will be 365, i.e. 364 plus the pontiff. Of these, 54 are women. There are 85 other non-voters, 27 of whom are women. So in total there will be 81 women, not including those in the General Secretariat.
The Spanish bishop recalled that before the opening of the synod on the evening of September 30, an ecumenical prayer vigil will take place in St. Peter’s Square in the presence of Pope Francis and representatives of various churches. Three days of spiritual retreat follow until the evening of October 3rd in Sacrofano. The retreat will be led by Dominican Timothy Radcliffe, former Master General and now at Oxford Monastery in the UK, and Benedictine Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini from Viboldone Monastery (MI).
During the presentation meeting, Jesuit Giacomo Costa, Special Secretary of the Synod, explained the calendar of works and explained that at the beginning of each module into which they will be divided, a mass will be celebrated at the altar of the President of the Synod in the Vatican Basilica, during the afternoon A pilgrimage is planned on the 12th, the prayer in St. Peter’s Square for migrants and refugees on the evening of the 19th and the rosary prayer in the Gardens on the evening of Wednesday the 25th
Vatican. There will be five modules: the first four will cover the various parts of the Instrumentuim laboris, and the last will discuss the summary report. Each module lasts half a day, with the keynote speaker presenting the various themes of the chapter of the Instrumentum laboris, followed by theological interventions and testimonies to delve deeper into the themes. There will be 35 groups consisting of 10/11 people and a moderator: 14 will be in English, 7 in Spanish, 5 in French, 8 in Italian, one in Portuguese. The documents are written in Italian and English. The work takes place in the Paul VI Hall. instead, where 35 large tables will be set up, one for each working group.
Compared to an initial list of participants that was presented on July 7th, there are some innovations. The papal participants, for example, do not include Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (“he asked for the dispensation and the Pope granted it,” it was said). There is also Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Obviously, the most important news is that of the two Chinese bishops: Antonio Yao Shun, 58 years old, Bishop of Jining/Wumeng in Inner Mongolia since 2019, when he was the first bishop consecrated under the Sino-Vatican agreement of September 2028 , and Giuseppe Yang Yongqiang, 53, bishop of Zhoucun in Shandong since 2010, when he was ordained with the approval of the government and the Holy See. It is not the first time that bishops of the People’s Republic have taken part in a synod. This also happened at the 2018 meeting on young people, where John the Baptist Yang Xiaoting, Bishop of Yan’ An, and Giuseppe Guo Jincai, Bishop of Chengde, were present. However, their names were announced at the time when work had begun and participation only lasted a few days. It is unclear whether the two prelates will be able to be present for the entire duration of the meeting this time.
As for the presence of representatives of the Italian episcopate, those of Archbishops Roberto Repole of Turin, Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, Domenico Battaglia of Naples, Mario Delpini of Milan and the Bishop of Novara Franco Giulio Brambilla (elected by the Assembly). . By the Archbishop of Modena-Nonantola and Bishop of Carpi Erio Castellucci and by the Bishop of Nuoro and Lanusei Antonello Mura (appointed by the Pontiff). The Cardinal President of the CEI Matteo Zuppi will take part as a member of the Ordinary Synodal Council.
The meeting was also attended by Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery of Communications and President of the Assize Information Commission. For his part, he explained that the work is subject to confidentiality “in order to feel part of a college that needs to develop a college position that is something other than the sum of the individual positions.”