The news conference with updates about the synod — how it will work and what reporters can expect — came just a few days after Pope Francis had told journalists aboard his flight from Mongolia that the discussions at the assembly of the Synod of Bishops 4 to 29 October will not be open to the public or to reporters to “safeguard the synodal climate.”
With so much of the world experiencing a “culture of exclusion,” Pope Francis said, the church can model a better way, one in which everyone finds a welcome and no one echoes the prayer of the Pharisee in Luke’s Gospel.
Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has been appointed one of the Synod’s president-delegates, who take turns presiding over Synod sessions on behalf of the Holy Father.
Earlier this year, Pope Francis invited each of the seven regions of the world to nominate 20 people who have been involved in local initiatives for the Synod of Bishops for a Synodal Church as possible additions to the Synod’s membership.
ACBC President and Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB and a member of the Synod’s preparatory commission, said it had been an extraordinary process to get to this point, with Catholics across the world helping shape the working document.
The Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod has approved the Instrumentum Laboris’ (working document) for the first session of the Synod on Synodality, as well as the methodology of the Assembly.
In this episode, we hear from Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference President and Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB who is part of the team preparing the global synod summit.
As a senior figure in the Australian Catholic Church, he has been deeply involved in synodality, and what it means for the Church.
Catholics gathered at the continental level say the Catholic Church must be united, not uniform, and embrace its many forms of expression throughout the world, said members of the synod preparatory commission after a weeklong meeting at the Vatican.
To begin drafting the working document, the group of experts – including Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB – have met behind closed doors to discuss the continental stage of the Synod on Synodality as a whole and analyse the seven final documents submitted by each of the regional assemblies.