Young people to set agenda for Synod

Jan 29, 2017

By Robert Mickens
In an unprecedented move, the Vatican has decided to by-pass national episcopal conferences and give the world’s young people a unique opportunity to help set the agenda for the next major meeting of the Church’s international Synod of Bishops.

Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, head of the Rome-based secretariat that coordinates the Synod’s activities, told journalists that his office was launching a website in March that will allow youngsters to honestly raise questions and share their views about life and faith inside the Catholic Church.

He said their input — in addition to a questionnaire sent to bishops and heads of religious orders — would then form a substantial part of the working document (instrumentum laboris) that will frame the discussions when Pope Francis convenes the XV General Assembly of the Synod in October 2018 around the topic, Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment.

“The Church has decided to examine herself on how she can lead young people to recognise and accept the call to the fullness of life and love, and to ask young people to help her in identifying the most effective ways to announce the Good News today,” says the preparatory text that the cardinal’s office has sent to the Church’s bishops and heads of religious orders.

Giving such a prominent voice to the young people themselves (which the Vatican identifies as between ages 16-29) could open up a can of worms. In fact, the Internet initiative has the potential of soliciting a whole range of opinions and criticism that the Church’s pastors may not want or be prepared to hear.

But, no doubt, that’s what the Pope wants. And he may see the younger generation as a resource and ally in bringing change to a Church that, too often, seems stuck in stale formulas from a bygone period that no longer have meaning for contemporary people.

Francis already took a stab at including the views of ordinary Catholics in the Synod gatherings of 2014 and 2015, which discussed all manner of issues regarding marriage and the family. Many people were caught off guard when he ordered Cardinal Baldisseri’s office to draw up a questionnaire to “take the pulse” of the people. This was sent to bishops’ conferences around the world. The bishops were then left to decide how, and to what extent, they would directly involve the lay faithful.

A fairly large number of these conferences seem to have involved them only marginally, drawing answers from committees or from the testimony of their priests and bishops.

However, some conferences, like that of England and Wales, put the questionnaire on their website and allowed for anyone to share his/her views.

Nonetheless, the responses were filtered through the bishops. This time the responses will be made directly to the Synod secretariat’s website. The bishops will have no opportunity to vet them. -- La Croix