C&SI - Synod Briefings (no 2) - 29 Oct 2023 (S03E49)

On this weeks podcast we continue sharing some of the briefings from the closing week of the Synod of Bishops. We have our usual run through the up coming liturgical odds and ends for the coming week and of course in part 3 of the podcast we reflect on this weeks gospel (Matthew 22:34-40) where we reflect on the question "Master, which is the greatest commandment of the law?".

Synod of Bishops 2023
As regular listeners will know we have had quite a bit of coverage around the synodal process so this week we bring you an update about the Synod of Bishops which is taking place in Rome during the month of October 2023. The C&SI team have taken excerpts from the daily Synod Briefings from Vatican News to share with you some of the actual thoughts and reflections from participants in  the Synod process.

It is an opportunity for listeners to hear from people actually participating in the Synod itself rather than what is being filtered through main stream media with its eurocentric focus on so called hot button issues.

We are sharing the briefings from Oct 25th and 27th from Synod of Bishops and also include the briefing about the publication of the Letter of the
XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to the People of God.

Full reports are available at the links below and you can also watch the briefings on the Vatican Youtube channel.

25th October - There were a number of contributors to the daily briefing but we are sharing the contribution of Doctor Nora Kofognotera Nonterah, a Ghanaian theologian and university lecturer who is participating in the work of the General Assembly as a witness of the synodal process for Africa. She said she felt heard as a layperson, a woman, and an African woman in a Church that in the past often did not give voice to, nor benefit from, the wisdom of African women. “But as I come to the Synod,” she said, “I come to the Synod with the hopes, the joys, the dreams, the anxieties, the lamentations, but also the resilience of the African women, lay people from the continent, and in fact, the entire church, that might not always get to sit at the center of the table of discourse.”

27th October - We focus on two contributors from the daily briefing from 27th October - Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP and Frere Alois, prior of the Taize community. Fr Timothy Radcliffe, also spoke as a spiritual assistant at the Synod. He mentioned that synodality is a part of the Dominican way of life, founded eight hundred years ago, in which decisions are made together. Being at his fourth Synod, he observed that this one is truly different from the others. "This is an extraordinary change in the way we are the Church together," he said, noting that simply seeing cardinals and young women from Latin America and Asia sitting together to talk is transformative from the perspective of people's experiences and being the Church. 

Frère Alois is participating in the Synod as a "special invitee," and began by quoting an expression confided to him by a Reformed pastor present in the Hall as a fraternal delegate: "This Synod is a profound experience of communion." These are significant words that testify to how the synodal assembly has genuinely been "open to all Christians and to the world."