Pope and advisory council to reform Synod of Bishops

POPE Francis and his eight cardinal advisers on Church governance spent much of their first day together discussing reform of the Synod of Bishops, but the Holy See downplayed expectations that their discussions would lead to major changes in the near future.
Holy See spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told reporters on October 2 the pope and the international Council of Cardinals had held morning and afternoon sessions the previous day, for the first of three days of initial meetings.
Their morning session took place from 9am to 12.30 pm in a private library in the Apostolic Palace.
Pope Francis opened the meeting with a talk on the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, in order to establish a “working climate not limited to organisational questions but broadly spiritual and ecclesiological,” Father Lombardi said.
Among the topics of the pope’s reflection were the mission of the church, the relationship between the universal church and local churches, collegiality, the church and poverty, and the role of the laity.
Each of the cardinals then offered a summary of the suggestions he had collected in preparation for the meeting, and offered his views on what should be the major areas of the council’s work.
The afternoon session, from 4pm to 7pm, was held in the Vatican guesthouse, where the pope lives and where all the cardinals have been staying during the council meetings.
The sessions on October 2-3 also were scheduled for the guesthouse, Father Lombardi said.
Most of the October 1 afternoon session was devoted to reform of the Synod of Bishops, which organises periodic meetings of bishops from around the world to advise the pope on specific subjects.
Pope Francis, who replaced the synod’s secretary-general on September 21, has suggested that he wants to make it into a permanent advisory body.
The synod’s new secretary-general, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, joined the pope and cardinals for their discussion, which touched on possible revisions to the body’s statutes.
Fr Lombardi said Pope Francis had suggested that the next synod would have an “anthropological” theme relating to the pastoral care of families, which was also a topic of discussion at the council meeting.
He did not say whether the group discussed the specific question of the eligibility of divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, which the pope has said would be on the council’s agenda.
Last April, Pope Francis named eight cardinals to advise him on the governance of the universal church and reform of the Vatican bureaucracy; on September 28, he gave the group permanent status and renamed it the Council of Cardinals.
The eight members, who represent six continents, are Cardinals Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, retired archbishop of Santiago, Chile; Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India; Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany; Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo; Sean O’Malley of Boston; George Pell of Sydney; Giuseppe Bertello, president of the commission governing Vatican City State; and Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.