Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Synod on Synodality Set to Open on October 4

September 28, 2023

~ by Gerard O’Connell for AMERICA Magazine

Bishop Luis de San Martín, OSA, the undersecretary of the synod’s general secretariat, presenting the final list of names at a Vatican press briefing, said the synod will have 365 members, “like the number of days in a year”; that includes 364 members with the right to vote, plus Pope Francis, who is president of the synod. Among the full members are 54 women.

During he month-long ecclesial events (October 4 – 29) members will focus on five modules as outlined in the working document (instrumentum laboris), which was first published on June 20. The five modules are: “toward a synodal church,” communion, mission, participation and a synthesis document.

Most of the work will be done in 35 small groups, with 10 or 11 members in each group plus a facilitator, divided according to language and using the methodology of “conversation in the Spirit,” characterized by “shared prayer with a view to communal discernment.” There will also be plenary session, at which the small groups will report back to the assembly.

There will be five official language groups at the synod, but a pre-synod survey revealed that English will be the most-spoken language, followed by Italian. Documents will be produced in English and Italian.

When asked if synod discussions will be “under the pontifical secret,” meaning that participants are required to maintain confidentiality regarding their deliberations, Paolo Ruffini, the prefect of the Dicastery for Communications, said it is not exactly precise to speak of pontifical secret; it is more correct to speak of “confidentiality” or “reserve,” as is appropriate for an ecclesial event, a spiritual event, that involves conversation in the Spirit. To read the entire account, please click here

Pope Francis’ Synodality Could Be Key to Reaching Young Catholics

June 23, 2022

~ by Br. Ernest J. Miller for National Catholic Reporter

Inspired by Pope Francis’ call for greater listening, presence and curiosity among the global church, nearly 400 students from more than 40 campuses across the Philadelphia metropolitan region joined a multipart listening process that culminated in an all-campus listening session at LaSalle University. Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Perez participated in the listening session and delivered some thoughts at the end.

A major highlight of the event was the small discussion groups self-selected by students focused on six themes identified from the reports of cross-campus listening sessions: journeying from exclusion to inclusion, from fragmentation to wholeness, from discord to unity, from performance to integrity, from broken trust to account, from being led to leading.

Following the Pope’s call
With the theme “For a synodal church: communion, participation, and mission,” the church’s process of synodality is positioned to capture the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of young people as they navigate uncertainty, transcend traditional religious boundaries and encounter a sense of wholeness. Recognizing the unique role colleges and universities play in the dialogical and listening processes that make synodality possible, Pope Francis encouraged Catholic higher education institutions to create spaces to listen to the joys and hopes, grief and anxieties of young people in our care.

Why Young People Need Synodality
There is a continuing trend of young Catholics disassociating not only with institutional Catholicism and Christianity, but all religion. Young Catholics find themselves in a holy frustration, wrestling with disjointed elements of reality afflicting the church, nation and world.

Katherine Angulo V., who prepares pastoral leaders for long-term ministry at the University of Notre Dame writes:

“Young people desire to be listened to… Like Jesus’ listening on the road [to Emmaus], our listening as teachers and ministers must take place on the road young people are traveling. We must go out to them. We must ask questions first, and then we must be prepared to answer the questions young people will inevitably ask us: Why do you stay? Why do you still believe?”

For young people, the experience of encountering a listening, curious and compassionate church becomes the yeast for fostering communion, participation and mission – the three markers that characterize the synod process in the church. To read the entire article, please click here

Collecting Religious’ Feedback for the Synod

March 22, 2022

~ by Dan Stockman, Global Sisters Report (GSR)

Sacred Heart Sr. Maria Cimperman is a true believer in the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Cimperman, Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, is part of a four-member panel put together by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) for women religious and the Union of Superiors General (USG) for men religious.
Religious congregations have until March 27 to submit their responses for the synod. Cimperman and her fellow commission members will meet in April in Rome to begin synthesizing those responses for the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The response must be filed by August.

GSR: Your passion for the synod is undeniable.

Sr. Cimperman: It goes against polarization. Normally, we are in our own little worlds, and this – the synod – is flying in the face of that, and you don’t know where it’s going to go, which means it’s probably the Spirit guiding it.

The whole synodal process is really communal discernment. How do we walk and talk with each other and hear each other? And if we do it right, it may not be that dominant voice that stands out, it may be that quiet voice you hear and say, “There is truth in this.” How do we invite and engage religious everywhere in this so it’s not only the leaders, it’s everyone in the church and even people not in the church.

GSR: You have talked about how vowed religious have a particular role to play, by helping the process for laypeople.

Sr. Cimperman: Religious are being called to offer something – really, two things. Yes, fill out your response as religious, but also participate in the parishes, our schools, wherever the conversations are happening, to listen and hear – because we’re always trying to meet the unmet needs – and to offer some of our ways, to show how we seek to listen through our own discernment processes.

We have some experience in communal discernment. It’s the experience of listening, engaging, ways of being silent and listening, modes of prayer. Plus, we’ll learn from other people. It’s a space where we can offer what we are deeply about.
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GSR: Will it matter? Is it really worth the bother when so many people say the church won’t listen and nothing will change?

Sr. Cimperman: People are asking that question. It is an act of hope. It’s an action – and it’s hope. That’s important.

I also see this as a call of the Spirit. This is a cure for that polarization and all this division. Synodality is asking us to sit with one another and have a conversation and listen and do some sharing. If we don’t do this, if we keep doing the same thing, what will happen? This is not doing the same thing. This is doing something different.

Also, I have confidence in the Spirit’s movement among us. This is not top-down. It’s not bottom-up. It’s coming from everywhere. Everyone is asking and being asked to be involved in this. We don’t know where it’s going to lead, and that’s exciting.

GSR: Do you get the sense that people are responding, that they really are participating in this process?

Sr. Cimperman: I think they’re getting so many people responding that they are trying to refigure how to do this. To me, that’s a great sign. There’s a hunger, and we’re going to lose people if we don’t engage them, the possibilities here are immense. And we, too, as religious can offer spaces for these conversations, space for people of the margins whose voices don’t get heard.

GSR: Is there some fear that what is said and heard may not be positive? There’s no shortage of people with criticisms of the church.

Sr. Cimperman: I think we are going to hear both pain and grace, but we don’t know where the conversations will lead.

To read the complete account, please click here

College Students Watch for ‘More than Business as Usual’ in the Church

March 22, 2022

~ by Miguel H.Diaz, National Catholic Reporter

The historic February 24 encounter between Pope Francis and college students from across the Americas was part of a larger continental experience of synodality that involved 58 universities in 21 countries. For two months university students across seven regions in the Americas gathered virtually in a synodal process exploring the root causes of migration and dreaming together just resolutions.

The initiative was born from a collaboration between Argentinian theologian Emilce Cuda and Loyola University Chicago. The powerful public meeting between Francis and university students was mutually rewarding. Afrikaan Sahra, a refugee from Somalia, described the process as life changing. He observed how the Pope “was tenderhearted and very open-minded to differences.” A number of the students were touched by the fact the Pope listened to them, took notes during the Zoom meeting, and commented on their ideas and proposals to tackle the root causes of migration. Cuda commented that Francis “is still caught up in joy, delighting in the moment that he shared with them.”

Many have now begun to ask what comes next. These students want more than business as usual in the church. They want conversation to evolve into concrete actions, and they want marginalized people to be recognized as agents of change. As these students dream of a new beginning in the church, they are ready to take the lead in this innovative educational and synodal initiative to address the salient signs of the times within and beyond our American continent

Welcoming new minds, hearts and hands lies at the heart of a synodal church. As Pope Francis mentioned in his conversation with the students, this means that the church, as people of God, must be willing “to open its doors and exit from its temples to meet Jesus in the streets.”

To become this synodal presence in the world is to embrace the mind, the heart and the hands of Jesus and seek to encounter and serve him preferentially among the poor and marginalized. The students who participated in this synodal process expressed deep commitments to become this synodal presence in the world, especially by placing themselves, their studies and their talents in service to re-incorporating those who have been disenfranchised from church and society, marginalized and oppressed by ecclesial and socioeconomic realities.

Church’s Initiatives on Synodality, Laudato Si’ and Eucharist Intertwine

February 16, 2022

~ Brian Roewe, EarthBeat, National Catholic Reporter

In a span of several weeks last fall, three large initiatives landed on the doorsteps of U.S. Catholic dioceses, parishes, congregations and organizations.

In October, Pope Francis opened the synod on synodality, a two-year engagement of the global churchy focused on listening and encounter. A month later, the Vatican officially launched its Laudato Si’ Action Platform, which invites all parts of the Church to take up seven year programs to adopt sustainable and ecologically friendly practices. And just days after that, the U.S. bishops announced their own plans for what they’ve called a National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year project that will culminate in the summer of 2024.

The three programs make for busy schedules in the coming years for many corners of the U.S. church. But do they have anything to do with each other? That was a question the Catholic Climate Covenant attempted to explore in a webinar on February 10. And it’s one its half-dozen panelists answered in the affirmative.

“These three initiatives are not separate but they’re deeply integral to one another. They fertilize and enhance and nourish each other,” said Jesuit Fr. David McCallum, a member of the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops and founding executive director of the Program of Discerning Leadership, a project of the Society of Jesus.

The synod on synodality aims at a churchwide conversion toward a more synodal, or listening, church, through what Pope Francis has called “the art of encounter.” Through June, dioceses are conducting listening sessions with people across the world.

Some see the Laudato Si’ Action Platform as the perfect venue to put that vision into practice. Jose Aguto, Covenant Executive Director, [says] that the synodal process “naturally flows into the Laudato Si’ Action Platform” with the synod representing an opportunity for Catholics to voice, and their local church to hear, desires for greater engagement on environmental concerns and then with the platform as a way to respond. The platform has been billed as the Catholic Church’s response to accelerating climate change and environmental destruction around the world.

“Many of our constituents have for years expressed concern and frustration that their pastors and bishops are not stepping into care for creation. This is an opportunity for constituents to say in a collective and honest way about the desiring that their churches embrace care for creation,” Aguto said.

As for the U.S. bishops’ Eucharistic Revival which begins in June, Aguto said the image of “one bread, one body” could help unify Catholics across ideologies and priorities and to see their work, including on creation care, as the work of all.
To read the entire article, please click here

Synodality is Not New, But a Tradition That Has Drifted

January 19, 2022

Synodality is Not New, But a Tradition That Has Drifted
~ Dan Stockman, Global Sisters Report

Synodality, where the church hierarchy listens to those in the pews, may seem like a new concept – but only because the Catholic Church has drifted away from this ancient tradition, a professor says.

Boston College School of Theology and Ministry professor Rafael Luciani told a webinar with 1200 registrants that synodality dates back to the first millennia of the church, and that through the Synod of Bishops on synodality, Pope Francis is simply reviving the practice in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

And synodality is especially important now because “the church is in the midst of a clericalist crisis,” Luciani said. “Synodality is rooted in the tradition of the church, Francis is rescuing this value of our tradition.”

The webinar, focused on how consecrated religious can engage in synodality was hosted on January 12 by the Center of the Study of Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Luciani is an expert on the Theological Commission of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

Sacred Heart Sr. Maria Cimperman, Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life and the moderator of the discussion, said Luciani has previously noted that “if you’re only listening, it’s a survey,” but that synodality calls us to much more.

“When I am being listened to , it is the Spirit speaking through my life,” he said. “We have to find a consensus, and this is new. To build a consensus means to discern together, to share time together – it’s a process.”

Luciani said synodality is much more than just the bishops of the church listening to the people – which they should be doing anyway. Rather, they should participate in dialogue “as just one more among the faithful,” noting that the roots of the word synod come from Greek words meaning “to journey together.”

“This changes the whole way we relate to each other as a church and as the people of God,” he said.

The church is not the hierarchy, the church is the people of God, Luciani said, and being people of God demands that everyone is part of the dialogue.

The synodal process is supposed to begin in the dioceses and parishes, but those on the panel said that is not happening in many areas.

Sr. Cimperman said that while men and women religious are often on the margins of the church, this is a chance for them to be the catalyst that makes the synodal process work.

Organizers said a recording of the webinar should be available in a few days on the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life’s media channel