For A Synodal Church:
COMMUNION, PARTICIPATION & MISSION
“The most far-reaching event in the Catholic Church of our lifetime officially gets its start in October 2021. The two-year “synod on Synodality,” launched in Rome on October 9 and in dioceses worldwide a week later, is set to mark Christianity forever.
For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission,” is designed to engage every diocese, every bishops’ conference, and every continental Church body. It will unleash the biggest popular consultation in history. It will require, as never before, the assembly of the People of God, in mass meetings at parishes and across dioceses around the world, who are being given “the ability to imagine a different future for the Church and her institutions, in keeping with the mission she has received,” in the words of the Preparatory Document released last week.”
2023 synod timeline
synod explained
Click on the graphic to view a video backgrounder on the 2023 Synod presented by VOTF Executive Director Donna Doucette during a Zoom meeting of VOTF's Charlotte, N.C. affiliate
preparatory document
Click on the graphic to read the Vatican's Preparatory Document for the 2023 Synod. It prepares the ground for the initial, diocesan phase of the process.
vademecum
Click on the graphic to read the Vademecum for the Synod on Synodality, the official handbook for listening and discernment in local churches during the first phase of the 2023 Synod from October 2021 through April 2022 in dioceses and bishops' conferences leading up to the Assembly of Bishops in Synod in October 2023.
conducting mini synods
Click on the graphic to read a comprehensive guide to conducing mini-synods to gather information and listen to views in advance of preparing input into the 2023 Synod process