Synod 2021 2023

The entire Catholic Church is called to participate in the upcoming Synod of Bishops.  This Synod is entitled; For a Synodal Church: Communion,

Participation and Mission.  

Pope Francis is asking every diocese to gather – clergy, religious and laity together, to listen to each other.  The goal of this journeying together is not just to create a new vision or pastoral plan.  Rather, the goal of our journeying together is to be present with one another, to listen and learn with each other, and to grow closer to the Lord and His Church.

What are we being asked to do?  

The Holy Father, Pope Francis is asking that the entire Church participates in this Synod.  The faithful, clergy and religious are invited to pray, listen, and talk together with the Bishops before the 2023 gathering of Bishops in Rome.  In the Derry Diocese we will pray, listen and talk with one another through parish and diocesan listening sessions.  

In creating the opportunity for listening and dialogue on the local level through this Synod Pope Francis is calling the Church to rediscover its deeply Synodal

nature.  This rediscovery of the Synodal roots of the Church will involve a process of humbly learning together how God is calling us to be as the Church in the third millennium.

The Synod’s Theme – For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission.  

In the ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops in October, Pope Francis declared that “the world in which we live and which we are called to love and serve, even with its contradictions, demands that the Church strengthen cooperation in all areas of her mission”.  This call

to cooperate in the mission of the Church is addressed to the entire people of God.  Pope Francis made this clear when he issued a direct invitation to all people of God to contribute towards healing: “every one of the baptised should feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so greatly need.  This change calls for personal and communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord does”.  In April 2021 Pope Francis initiated a synodal journey of the whole people of God to begin in October 2021 in each local church and culminating in October 2023 in the assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

Details of the listening sessions for our parish will be publicised soon.  All parishioners are invited to express their views on how we can help the universal Church develop its mission to witness to the gospel through our active participation at a local level.