The synodal process : a mature fruit of the Council

Abstract

Sixty years ago, on 11 October 1962, bishops from all over the world entered Saint Peter’s, initiating one of the most significant moments in the history of the Church. With that event, and the legacy it left us, we are all called to confront ourselves honestly and courageously, prudently and patiently, in genuine openness to the Spirit, without presuming – or assuming – how and where the Spirit wants to lead the Church. One of the challenges is to reinterpret the current situation in the Church against the background of that event. It is within this framework that I would like to develop my contribution, focusing on the synodal process underway as a mature fruit of Vatican II. Above all, I would like to show how a correct reception of the council’s ecclesiology is activating processes so fruitful that they are opening up scenarios that not even the council itself had envisaged, scenarios in which the action of the Spirit guiding the Church becomes manifest. [extract]