Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops, is pictured at the Vatican, 7 October 2019. Photo: CNS/IPA/Sipa USA via Reuters. The National Centre for Pastoral Research is inviting groups of seven to 10 people to express their interest in participating in the next round of consultation for the global Synod of Bishops on Synodality. The Document for the Continental Stag...

The Fifth Plenary Council of Australia and the global Synod on Synodality were key discussion points for Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President and Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB and Pope Francis when they meet this week.

Adopting the method of spiritual conversation, during the 12 days of work, some 50 experts from all over the world came together to draft the Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021-2023 Synodal Process

Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB agreed that Australia had something of a “head start”, with the Plenary Council having invited the People of God to consider significant questions around the Synod’s themes of communion, participation and mission.

In celebrating the Eucharist, we are celebrating, and being drawn into, the great mystery of our salvation, said Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, in a Pastoral Letter published Tuesday 16 August.

The Pastoral Letter addressed the whole Perth Catholic community, focusing on what it means for us to be a Christ-centred Church which is prayerful and Eucharistic.

The Australian synthesis, which emerged from a nine-month process that began in October 2021, draws from the diocesan consultation phase for the Synod of Bishops. Image: ACBC. Catholics in Australia have expressed a strong need for a Church that is missionary and a Eucharistic community that is inclusive, the national synthesis for the global Synod on Synodality reveals. The Australia...

The content that has been gathered over the past five months will be augmented by other processes that have considered the role of synodality in the life of the Church.

In order to help people encounter Jesus, priests “need to listen to the Spirit together with the whole people of God, so as to renew our faith and find new ways and languages to share the Gospel with our brothers and sisters,” Secretary-General of the Synod of the Bishops, Cardinal Mario Grech and Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, Archbishop Lazarus You Heung-sik have written, in a letter to priests and clergy released 19 March. By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service.

As Bishop Shane Mackinlay explains in the video above, when Pope Francis decided to hold what is now known as the Synod on Synodality, the Church in Australia found itself with some groundwork having already been laid in preparing for the Plenary Council.

The parishes of Applecross, Attadale, East Fremantle, Myaree, and Palmyra have this week highlighted how their parishes are embracing Synodality, having developed a response for 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome.