Rome Newsroom, 05 June, 2024 / 7:15 pm (ACI Africa).
Approximately 20 theologians are in Rome for 10 days of preparatory work preceding the drafting of the guiding document for the next assembly of the Synod on Synodality.
The June 4–13 closed-door gathering of experts in theology, ecclesiology, and canon law is being held at the Jesuit general curia down the street from the Vatican. The Secretariat of the Synod expects to release a document on the June meeting in early July.
This initial text will “prepare the way” for the drafting of the document — dubbed the “Instrumentum Laboris 2” — that will guide the work of the second session of the Synod on Synodality in October, Father Giacomo Costa, SJ, said in a June 5 press release.
Costa, the special secretary for the Synod on Synodality, said the group of theologians is meeting to carry out “an initial analysis” of reports from local communities and to discern on their “questions and theological reflections.”
The October synod assembly is a continuation of the multiyear Synod on Synodality, which began in October 2021 and has included stages of discernment and discussion at various levels of the Church. The first session of the Vatican assembly on synodality took place in October 2023.