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The Vatican confirmed that the bishops from the People’s Republic of China are leaving ahead of the event’s conclusion.
The decision was communicated Saturday by Paolo Ruffini, president of the Synod’s communication commission, at a press briefing earlier today.
Sister Maria de los Dolores Valencia Gomez, a Sister of St. Joseph, spoke at a press briefing about the participation of women in the ongoing Synod of Synodality and what it might mean for the future.
“If we have the courage to look at our current reality as a Church, it won’t be hard to see how the Evil One is at work, ” Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo Besungu, the Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who doubles as the President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), has said.
The past week risked being overshadowed by a letter about the German Synodal Way shared with Synod participants by Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg.
The Synod's relator general stressed, "The purpose of the mission is precisely to extend the scope of communion, enabling more and more people to meet the Lord and accept his call to be part of his people.”
Hundreds of delegates took a break from their discussions of synodality to visit the catacombs of St. Sebastian and St. Callistus located on Rome’s ancient Appian Way on Oct. 12.
Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda, Cameroon, said at an Oct. 12 briefing that the Synod on Synodality is “a chance for the voice of Africa to be heard.”
Four issues affecting the Church in Africa stand out at the ongoing Synod on Synodality conversations. These are the issues that those representing the African continent at the Bishops’ meeting in Rome are focusing on.
The ongoing Synod on Synodality conversations are providing “good moments of sharing” and mutual understanding, an African Catholic Archbishop participating in the October 4-29 Synod has said.
Spokesman Paolo Ruffini told the media that while some have asked for further discernment on the Church’s teaching, others said there’s no need for it.
Like the synod assembly participants, the lunch guests were asked “what they expect from the Church,” Paolo Ruffini told journalists Oct. 11.
The key message of the Synod on Synodality is listening, a virtue that most leaders in Kenya lack, the Catholic Archbishop of the country’s Nyeri Archdiocese has said.
After the first session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, "For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission", started last week in the Vatican, faithful around the world may ask themselves: What can we do now for the ongoing Synod? How can we contribute to its outcomes? Here are a series of suggestions.
Synod on Synodality delegates elected this week the members of a commission who will supervise the drafting of a “synthesis report.”
“All are invited to be part of the Church,” Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said at the start of the Oct. 9 general congregation.
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has called on the synod to discuss sexual abuse this month.
Concerns linger about the potential for pressure groups to sway the synod’s course.
After consulting doctors, Cardinal Mario Grech said there was no reason to be alarmed about the spread of COVID at the synod.
Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu described synodality as “a new way of being a Church.”