Vatican releases guidelines on implementing Synod proposals

The 24-page text, titled “Pathways for the Implementation Phase of the Synod”, is a guide for bishops and synodal teams, and an invitation to them to share their initiatives as they apply the Synod on Synodality’s final proposals locally.

The three-year period of implementation and evaluation on the local, national, regional and international levels will culminate in an ecclesial assembly in October 2028 at the Vatican “to share the fruits of the implementation phase and to have a kind of evaluation”, said Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops. 

Divided into four chapters, the guidelines offer responses to questions: What is the implementation phase and what are its objectives?; Who will participate in the implementation phase and what are their tasks and responsibilities?; How to engage with the 2024 synod assembly’s final document during the implementation phase?; and What method and tools can help shape the implementation phase?

The guidelines underline how the local churches must play an active role in this phase, including by reaching out to diverse communities such as the marginalised, young people and those resistant to the synodal process, because “in order to truly walk together, we cannot lose the contribution of their point of view”.

Engagement should extend beyond the parish to include schools, hospitals, prisons and digital platforms, it said, and relations with religious communities, movements and associations should be strengthened to further exchange the variety of gifts toward mission. Synodality “cannot be a path limited to a core group of ‘supporters'”, it said.

Every diocese or eparchy has to register its synodal team with the synod office, to support communication and effective coordination. The diocesan or eparchial bishop is the first person responsible for the implementation phase, the guidelines said.

“It is his responsibility to initiate it, officially indicate its duration, methods and objectives, accompany its progress and conclude it, validating its results,” the document said.

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Vatican provides guidelines to help local churches, bishops implement synod on synodality | USCCB

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