From Crux:
Organizers of Pope Francis’s ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality announced Thursday that ten different working groups had been formed in the Roman Curia to address specific topics that came out of last year’s session.
These topics, they said, are restricted to issues mentioned inside of the synod hall and include hot-button questions such as women’s access to the diaconate and ways of welcoming the LGBTQ+ community.
Asked specifically whether the working groups would touch on issues of homosexuality and the women’s diaconate, Monsignor Piero Coda, secretary general of the International Theological Commission, said “of course they are on the agenda,” and that various materials will be included in the reflection on these topics.
“If you look well at the issue of access to the diaconate, it’s said specifically that it was a topic that emerged from the synodal assembly and is a question of agreeing on this need to have a study,” he said, saying the results of the two past commissions established by Pope Francis to examine the issue, which were inconclusive, will be considered in the current study.
However, asked whether a working group dedicated to the relationship between the Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches would address the disputed question of mandatory priestly celibacy, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Vatican office for the Synod of Bishops, said no.
“The topic of celibacy was never put on the table during the assembly,” Grech said.
Similarly, Jesuit Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, general relator for the Synod on Synodality, stressed the importance of recalling that “these study groups don’t treat all topics discussed in the church.”
“They only involve those points that were presented by the People of God during the synodal process,” he said, saying, “We don’t do ecclesial politics, we are servants of this synodal process.”
Hollerich said he has tried and believes he has succeeded in the synod “to not put my own contents, but content that comes from people of God.”
Vatican News notes:
In light of the Synthesis Report, approved at the conclusion of the First Session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod, on October 28, 2023, Pope Francis has indicated ten themes that Synod Study Groups will consider ahead of synodal discussions in October.
The Holy Father listed the discussion topics in a letter addressed to Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the Synod, which was published on Thursday…
…After giving all matters due consideration,” wrote Pope Francis, “I direct that the Groups in question address the topics listed below in summary form, in the light of the contents of the Synthesis Report.”
The ten themes, the Pope delineated, are the following:
1. Some aspects of the relationship between the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Church (SR 6)
2. Listening to the Cry of the Poor (SR 4 and 16)
3. The mission in the digital environment (SR 17)
4. The revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis in a missionary synodal perspective (SR 11)
5. Some theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms (SR 8 and 9)
6. The revision, in a synodal missionary perspective, of the documents touching on the relationship between Bishops, consecrated life, and ecclesial associations (SR 10)
7. Some aspects of the person and ministry of the Bishop (criteria for selecting candidates to Episcopacy, judicial function of the Bishops, nature and course of ad limina Apostolorum visits) from a missionary synodal perspective (SR 12 and 13)
8. The role of Papal Representatives in a missionary synodal perspective (SR 13)
9. Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues (SR 15)
10. The reception of the fruits of the ecumenical journey in ecclesial practices (SR 7)
