Vatican City, October 15, 2023 (KAP) “Europe is shrinking, the South is becoming stronger”: with these words Cardinal Christoph Schönborn described the current mood of the four-week Synod of Bishops in the Vatican. The synodal meeting in the Vatican began on October 4th and runs until October 29th. The universal church is very present, explains Schönborn in a video published on the “X” platform. Europe is no longer the center of the universal Church, which results in “new learning for us Europeans”, said the Archbishop of Vienna.
One-third of the Synod’s voters come from Europe, North and Southern Americans make up a quarter of the members, Africans and Asians each make up about a fifth, and five percent of the Synod’s voters come from Oceania.
Compared to 1985 – the year in which Schönborn participated for the first time in a synod of bishops – according to the cardinal, much has changed: the “southern hemisphere” is strongly present, that is, Africa, Asia and Latin America. This also changes the attention and climate of the Synod, said the Archbishop of Vienna.
“The church is truly global and that is exciting,” concluded Schönborn. The World Synod is made up of more than 400 bishops, priests, lay people, theologians and religious in Rome, sent by local churches and appointed by the Pope – 365 of them with official voting rights. For the first time in a synod of the universal Catholic Church, non-bishops and non-priests, including women, have greater voice and voting rights – in terms of canon law, it remains a synod of bishops.
From Austria, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn (78) and the president of the episcopal conference, Archbishop Franz Lackner (67), are members of the synod. Among the invited theological experts and advisors – without voting rights – is pastoral theologian Klara-Antonia Csiszar (42), who works as a professor of pastoral theology at the Private Catholic University (KU) Linz and Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca teaches in Romania.
In 1985, Schönborn participated in the second extraordinary general assembly (25 November to 8 December 1985) as a member of the International Theological Commission; The General Assembly recognized the 20th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council and commissioned the creation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
(Link to video: https://twitter.com/kardinalwien/status/1713233024467485057?s=12&;t=_0J36IW7ukqTVPv4G8EY4w)