Vatican City, 12 December, 2023 / 7:45 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis will provide input on the “big questions” to focus on at the next session of the Synod on Synodality next October, the Vatican revealed in a new document Tuesday.
Examples include questions related to the ordination of women to the diaconate, revisions to canon law pertaining to the Oriental Churches, and a review of the Vatican document Ratio Fundamentalis, which serves as the basis for the formation of priests and deacons.
Those were among the topics deemed “matters of great relevance” that came up during the synod’s first session in October and require consideration “at the level of the whole Church and in collaboration with the dicasteries of the Roman Curia,” according to the new document.
A list of these topics will be sent to Pope Francis for review, and the pope will indicate sometime in January which topics require further study. The new document does not detail who the experts are or how they will be selected.
Released on Dec. 12 by the General Secretariat of the Synod, the Vatican office coordinating the ongoing synodal consultative process, the four-page document, titled “Towards October 2024,” details “the steps to be taken in the months between now and the Second Session of the Synodal Assembly.”
