Spirituality: Synod Study Groups 3 and 4

 An Update of the Working Documents of the Synod

At the conclusion of the Synod’s proceedings, ten working groups were established for further listening and consultation.

To achieve transparency and accountability, Pope Leo XIV has directed that the Final Reports be made public. These study groups reflect an authentic exercise of shared listening, reflection and discernment. It is synodality put into practice, not merely bureaucratic cooperation,” states Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod.

The first two reports are made public:

                  The report on mission in the digital environment (Group No. 3)

                  The report on formation to the priesthood (Group No. 4)

The next publication is schedule for March 10^th.

The Report on the mission in the digital environment (Group No. 3)

(click on the link above for the full report.)

The Report addresses how to live the Church’s mission within a culture increasingly shaped by the digital sphere.

Among the key themes: the need to integrate digital mission into the Church’s ordinary structures; an in-depth analysis of territorial jurisdiction considering online communities; and the formation of pastors and pastoral workers in digital culture.

The Report concludes with proposals articulated at three levels – the Holy See, Episcopal Conferences and dioceses.

 

The Report on formation to the priesthood (Group No. 4)

(click on the link above for the full report.)

Rather than proceeding with a revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis (2016), Study Group No. 4 elaborated a “Proposal for a Guiding Document” for its implementation in a missionary synodal key.

The document is structured in two parts. The Preamble offers an ecclesiological-pastoral framework and identifies a series of necessary conversions in priestly formation: relational, missionary, towards communion, towards service, and towards a synodal style. At its heart lies a central insight: the identity of the priest is formed “in and from” the People of God, not in separation from it.

Among the most significant proposals: alternating residence between the seminary and parish communities or other ecclesial contexts; shared formative experiences and moments with lay faithful, consecrated persons and ordained ministers beginning from the propaedeutic stage; the inclusion of qualified and competent women as co-responsible at all levels of formation, including within formation teams; and the acquisition of skills for co-responsibility and communal discernment.

 
Cardinal Grech underlines that the Final Reports are to be understood as working documents that already contain valuable indications from which local Churches and various ecclesial realities may draw inspiration from this very moment.

This is the spirit of synodality: a journey that does not come to a halt, in which each stage is already generative. It now falls to the General Secretariat of the Synod, together with the competent Dicasteries, to translate what has emerged in the Reports into operative proposals for the whole Church to be submitted to the Holy Father.