In October 2021 the Catholic Church’s synodal process on the theme of synodality began. This was the first time that a worldwide listening process and consultation with parishes and dioceses was attempted and many people in Ireland took part in a listening process during the early months of 2022.
By the end of May last year, dioceses and groups that held listening processes submitted a summarised document called a synthesis to the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. These submissions were reviewed in a spirit of prayer and discernment and the themes that were resonating across the submissions were presented at The National Pre-Synodal assembly in Athlone on 18 June 2022.
Following this assembly, a National Synthesis document with 15 emerging themes from the Catholic Church in Ireland was prepared and sent to the synod office in Rome. You can find this document at synod.ie/national-synthesis.
The synod office in Rome received 112 national syntheses from around the world and, in September 2022, members of the synod leadership team along with 20 other experts from 17 countries gathered in Frascati, Italy, to summarise all these documents. They produced an international document called Enlarge the Space of Your Tent, which was published in October 2022.
The European Continental Assembly, was held from 5 to 9 February in Prague this year and the Irish delegation consisted of four in-person delegates and ten online delegates. There were 200 people present at the Prague assembly representing 39 bishops’ conferences from 45 different European countries and a further 390 delegates online. Father Éamonn Fitzgibbon from the Diocese of Limerick and Ms Julieann Moran, General Secretary for the Irish Synodal Pathway, delivered the Irish delegation’s address to the assembly. Each continental assembly sent their reflections to Rome and a document called an Instrumentum Laboris is currently being prepared and is due to be published in June this year. This document will then become the official working document for the Synod of Bishops, which will take place in Rome from 4 to 9 October this year and in October 2024.
ENDS
