VATICAN: Vatican Creates Study Groups to Examine Themes for Synod’s First Session, Sets Date for Second Phase
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
The Holy Father through the General Secretariat of the Synod announced the setting up of study groups to examine the themes that emerged from the Synod’s first session which was held last year in October and have at the same time set the dates for the second phase of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly.
“The Second Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will take place from Wednesday 2 October to Sunday 27 October 2024 to continue the work of the Synod on Synodality around the theme “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, and mission,” reads the press release from the General Secretariat of the Synod dated Saturday, February 17.
The statement narrates further, that the second session will be preceded by two days of spiritual retreat, from 30 September to 1 October with participants arriving in Rome on 29 September.
Consequently, the Holy Father also on Saturday released a chirograph establishing the creation of study groups to examine some of the themes that emerged in the first Synod session.
The study groups comprising of theologians, canon lawyers, and other experts will be formed from among the competent dicasteries of the Roman Curia and the General Secretariat of the Synod, which will coordinate them, reads the Vatican report.
In the chirograph released Saturday which is a brief papal document circulation to the Roman Curia, the Holy Father focused on the collaboration between the dicasteries of the Roman Curia and the General Secretariat of the Synod.
He noted that the role of the General Secretariat of the Synod as highlighted in the Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio, the Secretariat is directly subordinate to the Bishop of Rome as Pastor of the universal Church and at the same time distinct from the Roman Curia as a “permanent institution at the service of the Synod of Bishops.” The team rather “supports and accompanies the synodal process established from time to time.”
In this way, Pope Francis noted in the Chirograph, “It specifically helps to promote in a synodal spirit the mutual relations of the Bishops and of the particular Churches over which they preside, among themselves and in communion with the Bishop of Rome in the one and catholic Church.”
He underscores further that according to the provisions of Art. 33 of Praedicate Evangelium, “the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia shall cooperate, “according to their respective specific competencies, in the work of the General Secretariat of the Synod”, by setting up study groups that will initiate, with a synodal method, the in-depth study of some of the themes that emerged in the First Session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.”
“These study groups are to be established by mutual agreement between the competent Dicasteries of the Roman Curia and the General Secretariat of the Synod, which is entrusted with coordination,” the Pope concludes.
