Vatican City, 10 May, 2022 / 3:20 pm (ACI Africa).
In a speech to dicastery leaders on Monday, a bishop said that the new Vatican constitution gives value to Catholic bishops’ conferences and their potential to foster communion between bishops and the pope.
The preamble of Praedicate evangelium, Bishop Marco Mellino said, affirms that bishops’ conferences “are currently one of the most significant ways of expressing and serving ecclesial communion in the different regions together with the Roman Pontiff.”
Mellino, who is the secretary of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals, said the constitution’s intention is “that of valuing the episcopal conferences ... in their potential for implementing the communion of the bishops among themselves and with the Roman Pontiff.”
He went on to say that this works to the extent that each of the bishops’ conferences “is a valid instrument which contributes, in a manifold and fruitful way, to the realization of the collegial affection among the members of the same episcopate and provides for the common good of the particular Churches.”
Mellino’s speech was published on May 9 in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. It included reflections on the role of laity, synodality, and the Roman Curia’s orientation toward service, as outlined in the apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium.
