Pope Francis has initiated a synodal process or journey, a pilgrimage for the whole people of God, to pray and discern the way the Catholic Church needs to go at this moment in time. On 9-10 October 2021 he opened a two year period during which time the Catholic Church intends to undertake a major consultation with its Faithful and as Pope Francis has indicated this is to include those on the margins of the Church and even our other Christian brethren.
The process is planned to go through three phases:
October 2021 - April 2022 - The Listening Process during which time we as parishes are being given the opportunity to send our views to our diocese, to our Bishop. This is the stage we are now in.
April - September 2022 - defined as the National Phase
The responses from parishes will be drafted into a document that the Bishops Conference in England and Wales can discuss. A synthesis of the results will then be drafted and sent to the General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops.
September 2022 - March 2023 Defined as the Continental phase
The Bishops will discuss the text of this working document and produce the final product for the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2023 in Rome - the Universal stage
This is intended to be a prayerful, process of listening (and being open to the Holy Spirit), hearing, discernment and action. It moves from listening to all (the people of the church) to the many (the bishops) to the one (Pope Francis) who will have the ultimate task of discerning what the Holy Spirit wants of the Church.
To assist in this Listening Process 10 questions have been posed to which anyone can contribute an answer.
The writable file can be found here on the parish website, but if anyone wishes to take a paper copy they will be available after Mass for the next two weeks. Please return your electronic responses or your completed paper responses to the parish office by Sunday 13th February - thank you!
Posted 28th January 2022