The Synod on Synodality on October 4, 2023. (Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News)
Vatican City, Oct 5, 2023 / 12:50 pm (CNA).
More than 400 people gathered at the Vatican on Wednesday to officially begin the Synod on Synodality.
During the first full day of work Oct. 5, participants met in small groups of about 12 people to discuss the first part of the Instrumentum Laboris, a document that will guide discussions over the nearly monthlong assembly.
The first section, which will form the basis of synod discussions Oct. 4–7, is titled “For a Synodal Church: An Integral Experience” and has two subpoints: “The characteristic signs of a synodal Church” and “A way forward for the synodal Church: conversation in the Spirit.”
According to Cristiane Murray, the vice director of the Holy See Press Office, synod members were given “a kind of task of answering” several reflection questions based on these themes on Oct. 4.
The president of the information commission for the synod, who is also the head of Vatican communications, Paolo Ruffini, said participants “were asked to pray with these [questions] yesterday evening, night, this morning before speaking at the synod.”
The main question for discernment was: “Starting from the journey of the local Churches to which we each belong and from the contents of the Instrumentum Laboris, which distinctive signs of a synodal Church emerge with greater clarity and which deserve greater recognition or should be particularly highlighted or deepened?”
The following questions were listed as “suggestions for prayer and preparatory reflection”:
1) Reflecting on how the synod course unfolded in the Church where I come from, what is the prevailing spiritual tone that characterizes it? What emotions and feelings did it arouse in those who took part? What desires did it arouse in the Christian community? What concerns emerged?
2) How can we grow in a synodal style of liturgical celebration, which highlights the distinctive contribution of all participants, starting from the variety of vocations, charisms, and ministries they bear?
3) In my local Church, how have we used and adapted the method of conversation in the Spirit? What are the main fruits it has enabled us to reap? How can it continue to help us grow as a missionary synodal Church?
4) What have we learned about listening as a characteristic of a synodal Church? What resources have we discovered we possess in this regard? Where do we perceive shortcomings? What do we need to address them? How can the ability to listen become an increasingly recognized and recognizable feature of our communities?
5) “A synodal Church promotes the passage from ‘I’ to ‘we’” (IL, No. 25). How has the synodal process promoted the cohesion of the local Church where I come from? How has it helped us to experience “the spiritual savor of being a people” (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, Nos. 268–274)? How do we feel we can grow in this dimension?
6) Did we meet with members of other Churches or ecclesial communities during the synod journey? Did we meet with believers from other religions? What was the spiritual tone of these meetings? What did we learn in order to grow in our desire and ability to walk together with them?
7) In my local Church, which tensions have emerged most strongly? How did we try to manage them so they did not become explosive? How do we evaluate this experience? What have we learned from this to help us grow in the ability to manage tensions without being crushed by them, which is proper to a synodal Church?
8) What experiences of discernment in common have we had in my local Church context? What have they enabled us to discover? In what direction do we need to continue growing?
After a day off on Sunday, Oct. 8, the Synod on Synodality will reconvene Oct. 9–12 to discuss the first question under section “B” of the Instrumentum Laboris: “A communion that radiates: How can we be more fully a sign and instrument of union with God and of the unity of all humanity?”
Section B is on “Communion, participation, mission: Three priority issues for the synodal Church.”
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Father Marko Rupnik, SJ, in an interview with EWTN in 2020. / Credit: EWTN
Rome Newsroom, Nov 4, 2025 / 16:02 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV asked accusers of Father Marko Rupnik to have patience as a trial on the priest’s alleged abuse begins at the V… […]
Statuary sits before imagery of the recently canonized saints in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024 / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Oct 20, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis canonized 14 new saints on Sunday, including a father of eight and Franciscan friars killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
In a Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 20, the pope declared three nineteenth-century founders of religious orders and the eleven “Martyrs of Damascus” as saints to be venerated by the global Catholic Church, commending their lives of sacrifice, missionary zeal, and service to the Church.
“These new saints lived Jesus’ way: service,” Pope Francis said. “They made themselves servants of their brothers and sisters, creative in doing good, steadfast in difficulties, and generous to the end.”
Pope Francis speaks at a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
The newly canonized include St. Giuseppe Allamano, a diocesan priest from Italy who founded the Consolata missionary orders, and St. Marie-Léonie Paradis, a Canadian nun from Montreal known for founding an order dedicated to the service of priests.
Also among the saints are St. Elena Guerra, hailed as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit,” and St. Manuel Ruiz López and his seven Franciscan companions, all martyred in Damascus in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
The final three canonized are siblings, Sts. Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, lay Maronite Catholics martyred in Syria along with the Franciscans.
Thousands of pilgrims prayed the Litany of the Saints together in St. Peter’s Square before Pope Francis declared the 14 as enrolled among the saints “for the honor of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.”
“We confidently ask for their intercession so that we too can follow Christ, follow him in service and become witnesses of hope for the world,” the pope said.
In his homily, Pope Francis highlighted how service embodied the lives of each of the new saints. “When we learn to serve,” he said, “our every gesture of attention and care, every expression of tenderness, every work of mercy becomes a reflection of God’s love. And so we continue Jesus’ work in the world.”
The Gospel for the Mass was chanted in Greek in addition to Latin in honor of the 11 Martyrs of Damascus.
Pilgrims gather in St. Peter’s Square for a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Father Marwan Dadas, a Franciscan friar from Jerusalem, was among those who attended the canonization. He said that the testimony of the martyrs from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land is especially meaningful to people who are suffering due to the ongoing war and violence in the region today.
“This is a good message to say that even though we have challenges — and it seems we have death continuously — we still have the light of God that is helping us and guiding us through these difficult periods,” Dadas told CNA.
“It’s an important message for me, and I hope it will be the message for all the people of the Holy Land, not only the Holy Land, but for everybody. It is a message from God saying that He is always with us.”
St. Giuseppe Allamano: A missionary heart
One of the most celebrated figures among the new saints is St. Giuseppe Allamano (1851–1926), an Italian diocesan priest who founded the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Allamano, though he spent his entire life in Italy, left a global legacy by training missionaries who carried the Gospel to remote corners of Africa, Asia, and South America.
Allamano told the missionaries in the order he founded in northern Italy in 1901 that they needed to be “first saints, then missionaries.”
The medical miracle that led to Allamano’s canonization involved the healing of a man who was attacked by a jaguar in the Amazon rainforest. In 1996, a man named Sorino Yanomami, a member of the indigenous Yanomami tribe in the Amazon, was mauled by a jaguar and left with life-threatening injuries.
As doctors treated his skull fractures, Consolata missionaries prayed in the hospital with a relic of Allamano, seeking his intercession. Miraculously, Yanomami recovered without any long-term damage, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Allamano, whose spiritual director was St. John Bosco, emphasized the importance of holiness in priestly life, telling his priests, “You must not only be holy, but extraordinarily holy.” His influence has endured through the orders he founded, present today in 30 countries across the globe.
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis: “Humble among the humble”
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840–1912), a Canadian religious sister, also took her place among the new saints. She founded the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, an order whose spirituality and charism is the support of priests through both prayer and by taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry in rectories in “humble and joyful service” in imitation of “Christ the Servant.”
During his homily, Pope Francis praised Paradis’ faith and underlined that “those who follow Christ, if they wish to be great, must serve by learning from Him” who made himself “a servant to reach everyone with his love.”
Born in the Acadian region of Quebec, Paradis also spent eight years in New York serving in the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in the 1860s and taught French at St. Mary’s Academy in Indiana, before founding her religious order in New Brunswick, Canada.
Paradis’ canonization was supported by the miraculous healing of a newborn in Canada, attributed to her intercession.
St. Elena Guerra: An “apostle of the Holy Spirit”
Among the canonized was St. Elena Guerra (1835–1914), known for her ardent devotion to the Holy Spirit. Guerra, who founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, was instrumental in promoting the first-ever novena to the Holy Spirit under Pope Leo XIII in 1895. Her writings and spiritual leadership inspired many, including St. Gemma Galgani, a mystic and saint who was her student.
For much of her 20s, Guerra was bedridden with a serious illness, a challenge that turned out to be transformational for her as she dedicated herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the call to consecrate herself to God during a pilgrimage to Rome with her father after her recovery and went on to form the religious community dedicated to education.
During her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, including a Holy Spirit Chaplet, asking the Lord to “send forth your spirit and renew the world.
“Pentecost is not over,” Guerra wrote. “In fact, it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give himself to all men and all who want him can always receive him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive him well, and he will come to us as he did to them.”
The Martyrs of Damascus: Courageous witnesses of faith
The solemnity of the ceremony was heightened as Pope Francis canonized the Martyrs of Damascus, a group of 11 men killed in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. The martyrs, including eight Franciscan friars and three laymen, were attacked in a church in the Christian quarter of Damascus during a wave of religious violence.
The canonized Franciscan friars include six priests and two professed religious — all missionaries from Spain except for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was from Salzburg, Austria.
Franciscan Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández were all declared saints.
The three laymen were brothers — Francis, Abdel Mooti, and Raphael Massabki — known for their deep piety and devotion to the Christian faith. Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was a father of eight children. Mooti was a father of five who visited the Church of St. Paul daily for prayer and to teach catechism lessons. The youngest brother, Raphael, was single and was known to spend long periods of time praying in the church and helping the friars.
According to witnesses, the brothers were offered the chance to live if they renounced their faith, but they refused. “We are Christians, and we want to live and die as Christians,” Francis Massabki reportedly said. All 11 were brutally killed that night, some beheaded, others stabbed to death.
“They remained faithful servants,” Pope Francis said. “[They] served in martyrdom and in joy.”
A global celebration
The canonization ceremony was attended by pilgrims from around the world, including Catholics from Kenya, Canada, Uganda, Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. More than 1,000 members of the Consolata order traveled to Rome to witness the canonization of their founder.
And bagpipers from Galicia in northern Spain played traditional music at the end of the Mass to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized among the Damascus martyrs.
Bagpipers play to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized among the Damascus martyrs at the Vatican on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Courtney Mares
“I thank all of you who have come to honor the new saints,” Pope Francis said. “I greet the cardinals, the bishops, the consecrated men and women, especially the Friars Minor and the Maronite faithful, the Consolata Missionaries, the Little Sisters of the Holy Family and the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, as well as the other groups of pilgrims who have come from various places.”
Pope Francis led the crowd in the Angelus prayer at the end of the Mass and asked people to pray in particular for the gift of peace for “populations who are suffering as a result of war – tormented Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, tormented Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and all the others.”
The pope also greeted a group of Ugandan pilgrims who traveled from Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs and urged people to pray for missionaries on World Mission Sunday.
“Let us support, with our prayer and our aid, all the missionaries who, often at great sacrifice, bring the shining proclamation of the Gospel to every part of the world,” he said.
“May the Virgin Mary help us to be like her and like the Saints courageous and joyful witnesses of the Gospel.”
A hearing in the Vatican finance trial on Nov. 17, 2021. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Mar 30, 2022 / 10:23 am (CNA).
Cardinal Angelo Becciu can testify against his fellow defendant in the Vatican finance trial, the self-described “security co… […]
18 Comments
When did Jesus stop becoming the Lamb of God, He who takes away the sins of the world . . . and become a psychologist? Obviously, I missed it.
My heart mourns for what has become of the Church since the Modernists revolution. About two years ago I happened upon the life of Sr. Marie de St. Pierre. I would recommend reading about her life and her visions of Jesus – it was highly enlightening regarding the “chastisement of revolutionary men”. God bless you!
Thank you so much Mark. May God bless you also.
I’ve read about Sr. Marie & we actually had a priest come for a Lenten Mission this year to talk about devotion to the Holy Face & encourage us to not blaspheme or misuse God’s name. Father talked about making our Sundays real days of rest, too & refraining from unnecessary work & doing business.
And this follows the model by which Christ founded His Church?
Four hundred people of diverse faith backgrounds (or none) reflecting on these questions is intended to promote a relationship with Christ as Redeemer?
This all seems like a recrudescence of the Tavistock craze of the Sixties. I wouldn’t be surprised that at some point participants aren’t blindfolded and asked to fall backwards into the arms of the group as an experience in trust.
Who’s paying for this exercise in self-indulgent reflection by 400 people? Close up shop, cut the losses, save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars and give the money to the poor? I’m actually ashamed at my Church putting on such a display.
Feelings, growth, conversing in the spirit, ability to listen, walking together as we instead of I, learning to walk with other religions, discernment in common – all out of the Sixties spirituality that feels in unison rather than thinks.
What Synod organizers mimic are the methods used by Marxist ideologues to brainwash, to cleanse the mind of preconceptions, convictions, to become pliable to the spirit. Which spirit? Personally I have a repulsion to what and how is being promoted.
Key terms extracted from the 27,000 words of bubble-wrap in the Instrumentum Laboris: “tone, style, fruits [gay bashing?], listening [or the ‘listing’ barque of Peter?], savor, tone [again], tensions, context”!
And next week, something about “radiates.”
Good news, this! Yours truly recalls that in his “Witness to Hope,” George Weigel commented on the “radioactive” power of the “Theology of the Body” in the 21st Century. Surely, THIS is the radiation on the Synod’s scripted agenda for next week!
If only the intended and concrete “fabric” (a better term?) of the also “hierarchical-communion” Church–rooted in the breadth and depth of the Communion of Saints–could be advanced without synodally undermining–I mean underMINDing–the unity of the Faith with morals. Walking and chewing gum at the same time!
Butt, the pygmies-of-progressivism are at the helm, or the stern, or the port side, or wherever.
I am attaching a Wikipedia entry on the topic of “Sensitivity Training Groups” that is straight out of the 60’s radical psychologizing movement and the Tavistock model I alluded to above. If this doesn’t describe the proceedings on Synodality, nothing does.
“The focus of the sensitivity training group was on here-and-now interactions among the group members, and on their group experience; and worked by following the energy of the emerging issues in the group, and dramatising them in verbal or non-verbal ways. An atmosphere of openness and honesty was encouraged throughout; and authenticity and self-actualization were prominent goals.”
And Will Bishop Barron be THE VOICE “crying out in the wilderness” of this stupendous and evil gathering of heresy? Will he call out the heresy that is being expressed in flowery terms, and make bold proclamations of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially Jesus’ first encyclical to mankind: “REPENT AND REFORM YOUR LIVES, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND?” Will Bishop Barron be that voice crying out in this synods wilderness engulfed in Satan’s smoke? And then will he boldly proclaim to all the souls in attendance in this wilderness what St. Paul resolutely said in leaving Athens: “HENCEFORTH I WILL PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED? What say ye, Bishop Barron? I pray, and I say this with all humbleness and sincerity of heart, that you and other likeminded men at this stupid gathering, will follow the example of St. John the Baptist.
From the moment I heard of this Synod on Synodality, I was highly suspicious. Then as the Synod when from bishops to a highly selected, specific group of lay members, I lost any degree of confidence that this would bode well for the Church. There was no Christ crucified. No Savior that chose to bear the sins of the world. No acknowledgement of his mercy or his glorious resurrection. I listen to pope Francis speak and I become confused. Where is Tradition valued and acknowledged. He abandons Christ, focuses on the mundane, and chooses to criticize the west. It is almost as if he is a politician for some failed, backward Marxist state.
Every single word I have read or heard from the Synod and its promoters gives me PTSD from the touchy-feely psychobabble that was served up to us in my “catholic” high school in the 1970s. It was cringy, embarrassing and revolting back then, when doofus hipster Christian Brothers and Maryknoll priests in civvies chatted us up as we sat cross-legged in circles on the floor. It is even more so now, coming from aging, reactionary hippies and their coterie of young, malformed dissenters.
I just don’t get it. A synod about what a synod means to you or your fellow synod goers? They are looking for a reason to justify their time away from working in the vineyard.
With all this reference to “Spirit”, I can’t believe they can be this frivolous and blasphemous in their treatment of the Holy Spirit, so I’m sure, in the interest to get things started in the spirit of conviviality, they must be talking about mandatory cocktail hours. Given the importance of the event, I’m sure the whiskey varieties are, at the very least, twleve year old, which should take us back to an era before this madness began.
When did Jesus stop becoming the Lamb of God, He who takes away the sins of the world . . . and become a psychologist? Obviously, I missed it.
It’s pretty pitiful isn’t it Mark?
Synodial corporate speak.
My heart mourns for what has become of the Church since the Modernists revolution. About two years ago I happened upon the life of Sr. Marie de St. Pierre. I would recommend reading about her life and her visions of Jesus – it was highly enlightening regarding the “chastisement of revolutionary men”. God bless you!
Thank you so much Mark. May God bless you also.
I’ve read about Sr. Marie & we actually had a priest come for a Lenten Mission this year to talk about devotion to the Holy Face & encourage us to not blaspheme or misuse God’s name. Father talked about making our Sundays real days of rest, too & refraining from unnecessary work & doing business.
And this follows the model by which Christ founded His Church?
Four hundred people of diverse faith backgrounds (or none) reflecting on these questions is intended to promote a relationship with Christ as Redeemer?
This all seems like a recrudescence of the Tavistock craze of the Sixties. I wouldn’t be surprised that at some point participants aren’t blindfolded and asked to fall backwards into the arms of the group as an experience in trust.
Who’s paying for this exercise in self-indulgent reflection by 400 people? Close up shop, cut the losses, save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars and give the money to the poor? I’m actually ashamed at my Church putting on such a display.
Vatican III?
The purpose of synodolatry is coming clear.
It is to turn our gaze from Jesus — who is almost never mentioned in its documents — to ourselves.
Feelings, growth, conversing in the spirit, ability to listen, walking together as we instead of I, learning to walk with other religions, discernment in common – all out of the Sixties spirituality that feels in unison rather than thinks.
What Synod organizers mimic are the methods used by Marxist ideologues to brainwash, to cleanse the mind of preconceptions, convictions, to become pliable to the spirit. Which spirit? Personally I have a repulsion to what and how is being promoted.
Key terms extracted from the 27,000 words of bubble-wrap in the Instrumentum Laboris: “tone, style, fruits [gay bashing?], listening [or the ‘listing’ barque of Peter?], savor, tone [again], tensions, context”!
And next week, something about “radiates.”
Good news, this! Yours truly recalls that in his “Witness to Hope,” George Weigel commented on the “radioactive” power of the “Theology of the Body” in the 21st Century. Surely, THIS is the radiation on the Synod’s scripted agenda for next week!
If only the intended and concrete “fabric” (a better term?) of the also “hierarchical-communion” Church–rooted in the breadth and depth of the Communion of Saints–could be advanced without synodally undermining–I mean underMINDing–the unity of the Faith with morals. Walking and chewing gum at the same time!
Butt, the pygmies-of-progressivism are at the helm, or the stern, or the port side, or wherever.
Those questions are tedious. They don’t really ask anything that matters or pertains to the Divine and Holy Faith.
If this Synod just publishes a bunch of goop I won’t mind at all. Since goop has no meaning and by definition cannot harm the faith.
Yikes. Those questions are nonsense.
I am attaching a Wikipedia entry on the topic of “Sensitivity Training Groups” that is straight out of the 60’s radical psychologizing movement and the Tavistock model I alluded to above. If this doesn’t describe the proceedings on Synodality, nothing does.
“The focus of the sensitivity training group was on here-and-now interactions among the group members, and on their group experience; and worked by following the energy of the emerging issues in the group, and dramatising them in verbal or non-verbal ways. An atmosphere of openness and honesty was encouraged throughout; and authenticity and self-actualization were prominent goals.”
# of times the following words are mentioned in in the questions:
God = 1 time
Jesus = 0
Christ = 0
synod and its variants = 17
And Will Bishop Barron be THE VOICE “crying out in the wilderness” of this stupendous and evil gathering of heresy? Will he call out the heresy that is being expressed in flowery terms, and make bold proclamations of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially Jesus’ first encyclical to mankind: “REPENT AND REFORM YOUR LIVES, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND?” Will Bishop Barron be that voice crying out in this synods wilderness engulfed in Satan’s smoke? And then will he boldly proclaim to all the souls in attendance in this wilderness what St. Paul resolutely said in leaving Athens: “HENCEFORTH I WILL PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED? What say ye, Bishop Barron? I pray, and I say this with all humbleness and sincerity of heart, that you and other likeminded men at this stupid gathering, will follow the example of St. John the Baptist.
From the moment I heard of this Synod on Synodality, I was highly suspicious. Then as the Synod when from bishops to a highly selected, specific group of lay members, I lost any degree of confidence that this would bode well for the Church. There was no Christ crucified. No Savior that chose to bear the sins of the world. No acknowledgement of his mercy or his glorious resurrection. I listen to pope Francis speak and I become confused. Where is Tradition valued and acknowledged. He abandons Christ, focuses on the mundane, and chooses to criticize the west. It is almost as if he is a politician for some failed, backward Marxist state.
Every single word I have read or heard from the Synod and its promoters gives me PTSD from the touchy-feely psychobabble that was served up to us in my “catholic” high school in the 1970s. It was cringy, embarrassing and revolting back then, when doofus hipster Christian Brothers and Maryknoll priests in civvies chatted us up as we sat cross-legged in circles on the floor. It is even more so now, coming from aging, reactionary hippies and their coterie of young, malformed dissenters.
Yes, this reminds me of the “listening sessions” & non-directive psychotherapy from the 1970’s which wreaked havoc on religious orders.
I just don’t get it. A synod about what a synod means to you or your fellow synod goers? They are looking for a reason to justify their time away from working in the vineyard.
With all this reference to “Spirit”, I can’t believe they can be this frivolous and blasphemous in their treatment of the Holy Spirit, so I’m sure, in the interest to get things started in the spirit of conviviality, they must be talking about mandatory cocktail hours. Given the importance of the event, I’m sure the whiskey varieties are, at the very least, twleve year old, which should take us back to an era before this madness began.