Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark announced he would be celebrating an opening Mass for the synod on Oct. 17 at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
“Sister Donna Ciangio, OP, the Chancellor of the Archdiocese, and Father Bismarck Chau, the rector of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, have agreed to coordinate the synodal process throughout our Archdiocese,” Cardinal Tobin wrote Oct. 11.
“Together with their team, they will ensure that every parish will have the opportunity to participate in this important moment in the history of the Church. But they will also be concerned with voices from the ‘periphery,’ voices that are easily and often overlooked in Catholic discussions. The Holy Spirit is moving throughout the Church and we need to listen. As a result of the diocesan consultation, a report will be written that will collect our voices.”
Carmen Gaston, Director of Mission Advancement for the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, told CNA that Archbishop Alexander Sample is set to announce plans to participate in the Synod at a special Mass celebrating the 175th Anniversary of the archdiocese, celebrated at St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Oct. 24.
Mark Haas, spokesman for the Denver archdiocese, told the National Catholic Register that plans for how the synodal process will unfold will be “communicated to all the faithful once the plans are finalized.”
The Diocese of Springfield in Illinois completed its fourth diocesan synod in 2017. That process included consultations with all the laity, priests, deacons, and leaders of the religious communities in the diocese, as well as delegates from each of the 129 parishes.
“I think much of the information that we are being asked to gather during the diocesan phase of the Synod on Synodality can be gleaned from what we learned from our surveys of active and inactive Catholics and what we heard during our listening sessions and consultations held during our Fourth Diocesan Synod,” Bishop Thomas Paprocki wrote in a recent column.
“Additional consultations will be done with our canonical consultative bodies, the Diocesan Pastoral Council, the Presbyteral Council, and parish pastoral councils, supplemented perhaps by focused listening sessions in the deaneries as needed.”
Similarly, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is currently in the midst of its own archdiocesan synod. Some of the information collected for that synod will be applicable to what Pope Francis has requested from dioceses for the synod on synodality, the Catholic Spirit reported. Archbishop Bernard Hebda is set to celebrate a Mass in solidarity with the pope on Oct. 17 at the Cathedral of St. Paul.
The Diocese of Brooklyn opened its own diocesan synod Oct. 10, and is set to hold a series of “listening sessions”— first at the parish level and then at the diocese’s 22 deaneries — from now until April, The Tablet reported.
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The worldwide synod will conclude with the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in October 2023.
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