Bishop of Raphoe to participate in assembly on Catholic Church’s future

The Bishop of Raphoe, Alan McGuckian SJ, has travelled to the Vatican for the Synod on Synodality assembly which begins next week.

Bishop McGuckian will be one of 364 voting delegates for what is the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

The first session takes place from October 4-29 with a second session planned for October 2024.

Bishop McGuckian and Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick will represent the Irish Bishops’ Conference in Rome.

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This Synod on Synodality will be attended by Church representatives from around the world and will sit on the theme: ‘For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission’.

During the assembly, the delegates will discuss questions posed in the recently released Instrumentum laboris, which covers topics such as women deacons, priestly celibacy, LGBTQ outreach, and highlights a desire for new institutional bodies to allow for greater participation in decision-making by the ‘People of God’.

Leading Church commentators predict that this could be ‘the most transformative event in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council’.

“I was excited to see that ‘mission’ was at the very heart of it,” Bishop McGuckian said.

“Every one of us wants to see the Church alive, and attractive and beautiful in the world.  Many of the people who at these things are concerned about faith being passed on to new people. 

“Parents are very concerned, and grandparents are very concerned, that faith will be passed on to their children.  That is a big part of the mission of the Church, and outreach. 

“I would love to see us having the beginnings of an experience of communion with Jesus among us, where we will find ways of expressing the truth of the faith in new and powerful ways.”

This year’s assembly will have 70 non-bishop members in attendance. The presence of lay men, lay women, religious, and priests as voting members will make this the most diverse gathering in the history of the Synod of Bishops.

This Saturday, Pope Francis will preside over an ecumenical vigil of prayer in Saint Peter’s Square to welcome the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I; the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, other Church leaders as well as thousands of Christians from different denominations.