“How can we ensure that women feel an integral part of this missional Church?” This question was asked by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, general rapporteur of the XVI. Synod of Bishops in the Vatican, participants in the Synod this Friday. In this third module, “some of the most important points of the Synod” would be discussed, Hollerich told those present. The plenary meeting was broadcast publicly.
Here you will find the speeches given this Friday morning at the eighth plenary assembly of the Synod of Bishops, broadcast publicly, in the Vatican, in…
Christine Seuss – Vatican City
Overall, the section of the Instrumentum Laboris to be addressed deals with issues that many local churches consider urgent: in addition to the role of women, these are issues of church hierarchy and grassroots participation. The part of the working document that will be discussed by the synods in the next sessions is called “Shared responsibility in the mission: How can we better share skills and tasks in the service of the Gospel?”, Cardinal Hollerich highlighted to the synodal assembly. that an Assembly like the current one must be “very careful” in dealing with these issues, which he identified as “some of the most important points of our Synod”.
“Do we, men, realize the diversity and richness of the charisms that the Holy Spirit gave to women?”
The majority of participants sitting in the Synod hall were men, said Hollerich, who raised a number of questions about this in his introduction. “Do we, men, realize the diversity and richness of the charisms that the Holy Spirit gave to women? Or do our actions often depend on our previous upbringing, our family upbringing and experience, or the prejudices and stereotypes of our culture? Do we feel enriched or threatened when we share our common mission and when women share responsibility for the mission of the Church based on the grace of our common baptism?”
In this plenary session, in which the issue of women was treated with special emphasis, the Mexican nun Maria de los Dolores Palencia Gomez sat as delegated president alongside the Pope, who also participated in the meeting. The Synod of Bishops has 54 female members, to which 364 members have been appointed. The cardinal emphasized that the majority of those present were ordained ministers. But there are many other components, charisms, vocations and other offices in the people of God. Women’s baptism is in no way inferior to men’s, Hollerich said bluntly.
Equivalent baptism
The general rapporteur emphasized that the issue of the bishops’ ministry, which should be addressed in the last worksheet of the module, was also central for the members of the assembly, which is largely made up of bishops. Because the answer to this question will have a “direct impact on our daily lives, on the way we organize our time, on the priorities of our agenda, on the expectations that God’s people have of us and on the way we conceive our mission”. ”.
In particular, the topics to be covered in this module were particularly close to everyone. They must also be aware of their own bias in this regard, warned the cardinal, who presented in detail the topics covered in this module.
He invited participants to reflect and, if necessary, review their own speeches already prepared for the language circles, in the light of the testimonies heard during the meeting. All topics to be discussed must be discussed calmly; It is not necessarily about addressing all aspects of the issues or perhaps giving hasty answers. All topics could be deepened over a longer period, said the cardinal, considering that the members of the synod will meet again next October 2024, for four weeks, to decide on the synod of bishops on synodality.
Learn from Jesus on the issue of women
After the spiritual and theological impulses, the first major contribution of the day came from Sister Gloria Liliana Franco Echeverri, Colombian nun and president of the Latin American Association of Religious (Clar), who participates in the synodal assembly as a witness to the synodal process on her continent.
When thinking about the mission of women in the Church, it is good to “look at Jesus and learn from him”, said the nun, who also attended a press conference: “The Gospel reports the availability of Jesus, to see and feel women, to create them, honor them and send them.”
“True reform” comes from encountering Jesus and “appropriating his style”, highlighted Franco Echeverri, who reported an elderly woman who dedicated her life to serving the sick and also brought them communion every day until the new. priest forbade her. Another woman completed her doctorate in theology with better grades than her male colleagues, but received only the civil diploma and not the theological one from a pontifical university: “However, this is already an achievement, because until a few years ago women they could” I don’t study theology in the country, but only religious studies”, says Franco Echeverri.
True reform comes through the encounter with Jesus
Many other women, despite their qualifications, do not have a place on parish or diocesan councils because, according to (male) members of many councils, administrative issues are more of a strategic and administrative nature – and would therefore contradict women’s mission, which many see as “maternal” and “pastoral”. But the church has a “feminine face”, the nun insisted:
“The Church, which is mother and teacher, but also sister and student, is feminine, and this does not exclude men, because in everyone, men and women, dwells the power of the feminine, wisdom, kindness, tenderness, strength, creativity, parrhesia and the ability to give life and face situations with courage.”
However, she also made it clear:
“Behind the desire and commandment for a greater presence and participation of women in the Church lies not a desire for power or a feeling of inferiority, nor an egocentric struggle for recognition, but rather the desire to live in fidelity to God’s plan, which He wants everyone to find themselves in this, recognize the people with whom he has made an alliance as brothers.”
There is the right to “participation and equal shared responsibility in discernment and decision-making”, but fundamentally it is the desire to “live consciously and in harmony with the common dignity that baptism confers on all”: “It is the desire, to serve “.
Women are a dynamic element of the mission
Before the testimonies and immediately after the introduction by Cardinal Hollerich, the participants heard an excerpt from the Gospel of Luke before giving the floor to Benedictine Mother Maria Grazia Angelini, who had already given spiritual impulses during the retreat immediately before the Synod. Her push today was titled: “Women on the show”. In it she explained the important role that women played in the mission, not only in the early days of the Church, but also today: “In light of the origins – the style of Jesus – it can be understood that women are a dynamic element of the mission; a presence that – in critical, disruptive, troubled moments – feels the movement of life, creates new and unlikely relationships, supports and resolves conflicts with patience. It is not a question of rights, but of gifts received”, says the nun, who above all wants the well-being of the church to be the focus.
There are “various services” to the church’s mission. But, in any case, an “open-minded” synodal Church immediately encounters, at the beginning, as happens today, the presence of women who are different, cannot be equated, but rather differentiated (…) and must be integrated into their respective characteristics “. Jesus was innovative and created a style in his way of dealing with women that was “risky and revealing”: “But this peculiarity has a provocative confirmation in today’s experience. Today we are in the concrete situation of recognizing that this concerns us , which concerns the Church, which fights for reform.”
Shared responsibility for the mission
For Carlos María Galli, dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University of Argentina, the basic document Instrumentum laboris places the theme of shared responsibility in the mission at the center of discernment. In his theological reflection he dealt with the internal link between synodality and mission; the shared responsibility of those baptized; participation in the service of the Gospel. Galli is a member of the International Theological Commission and coordinator of the theological-pastoral team of the Latin American Episcopal Council CELAM.
Today the Church enters a “new stage of evangelization”, which invites it to constitute itself “in a ‘permanent state of mission’ in all regions of the earth”, said Galli, citing Pope’s programmatic letter Evangelii Gaudium.
More shared responsibility for all baptized people
The Synod of Bishops, like any other ecclesiastical institution, is called to increasingly become “an appropriate path for the evangelization of the contemporary world and not for self-preservation”, said the theologian, who highlighted that “all the people of God ” is the theme of The proclamation of the Gospel is just as each baptized person is called to be a “protagonist in the mission”, as Pope Francis also reminded us. Mission is essential to the church, he emphasized.
Likewise, all baptized people are co-responsible for the mission and are called to share the gifts and tasks in each local church – diocese or eparchy – in particular church associations at regional, national and continental levels and throughout the church. “Baptism and faith are the basis of the universal call to holiness and mission,” said Galli. “Intensifying co-responsibility should help us see how the charisms of lay people enrich the Christian community and improve the lives of the poor; how to rebuild bonds of reciprocity and complementarity between men and women; how the dignity of women can be recognized and promoted in the church”.
The Synod’s digital continent
Sister Xiskya Lucia Valladeres Papagua, from Nicaragua, spoke of the possibilities and fruits of digital evangelization, who also thanked the Communication Dicastery and the Synod Secretariat for their support in the “Digital Synod”, where a network of missionaries and digital evangelizers was formed in advance of the Synod managed to digitally establish a missionary relationship with people who were sometimes far from the Church. “The awareness that we are part of what could be called a digital mission carried out by and in the Church was a concrete fruit of the synodal path. There are now almost 2,000 digital missionaries from around the world and the number continues to grow”; said the nun, who expressed the hope that one day “all dioceses will have their teams of ‘digital missionaries’”.
Prayer for South Sudan
The last witness to speak was Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla, Archbishop of Juba, South Sudan. He highlighted that military conflicts continue to occur in his country and asked the congregation to pray.
(Vatican news)