SUMMARY OF THE SYNOD CONTINENTAL STAGE WORKING DOCUMENT
On October 27, 2022, the Holy See’s General Secretariat of the Synod issued the Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) of the 2021-2024 Synod: For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission. This working document DCS is the compilation of all of the input from the past year’s Synod listening sessions. In the current Continental Stage of the Synod, the continental assemblies (Our continental assemby is the USCCB, United States Conference of Caatholic Bishops, and the Canadian CCB.) will be working on the DCS wiith input from the diocesan parishes in their respective connferences. Then the results of all of the continental assemblies will be compiled to create the Instrumentum Laboris (Working Document) which will provide the subject matter for the actual final Synod of Bishops.
- The process leading from the publication of this DCS to the drafting of the Instrumentum Laboris will be marked by the following steps:
- The DCS will be sent to all diocesan bishops; each of them, together with the diocesan synodal team that coordinated the first phase, will arrange an ecclesial process of discernment on the DCS, starting with the three questions indicated above in no. 106. (See below.) Each local Church will thus have the opportunity to listen to the voice of the other Churches, gathered in the DCS, and to respond to it from its own experience.
- With the involvement of its synodal team (for us, S. Donna, et al), each Episcopal Conference has the task of collecting and synthesizing in the form most appropriate to its own context the reflections around the three questions coming from the individual Dioceses.
- The reflection and discernment of each Episcopal Conference will then be shared within the Continental Assembly, according to the modalities identified by the Continental Task Force.
- Instructions for the Continental Task Force.(See page 51 of the DCS pdf.)
- Each Continental Assembly will draft its own Final Document of a maximum of about twenty pages confronting the three questions from its own specific context. The Final Documents are to be submitted by each Continental Task Force to the Synod Secretariat by March 31, 2023. Based on the Final Documents of the Continental Assemblies, the Instrumentum laboris will be drafted by June 2023.
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THE THREE QUESTIONS
The ecclesial process of discernment on the DCS will begin with the three questions defined in Sections 106:
- The DCS is thus the privileged instrument through which the dialogue of the local Churches among themselves and with the universal Church can take place during the Continental Stage.
To pursue this process of listening, dialogue and discernment, the reflection will focus on three questions:
- – “After having read and prayed with the DCS, which intuitions resonate most strongly with the lived experiences and realities of the Church in your continent? Which experiences are new, or illuminating to you?”
- – “After having read and prayed with the DCS, what substantial tensions or divergences emerge as particularly important in your continent’s perspective? Consequently, what are the questions or issues that should be addressed and considered in the next steps of the process?”
- – “Looking at what emerges from the previous two questions, what are the priorities, recurring themes and calls to action that can be shared with other local Churches around the world and discussed during the First Session of the Synodal Assembly in October 2023?”