Synod comes to an end with final document approved

By Josh Low

After a three-year process, the Synod on Synodality ended last month, with the 356 delegates gathering to vote on the final document.

The Second Session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality was held in Rome at the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall from 2 to 27 October.

The 52-page final document titled ‘For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission’ was approved by the Holy Father following a vote by the delegates.

In doing so, Pope Francis confirmed he would not issue the customary post-synodal apostolic exhortation but offer the final document for implementation by the entire Church.

This means the document is part of the Holy Father’s magisterium. However, the pope clarified that it was not a binding norm but a set of guiding principles.

The document contains 155 paragraphs which were voted on one by one, and is organised into five main sections addressing spiritual, relational, procedural, institutional, and missionary conversion.

Fourteen Australians were among the 356 Synod delegates who spent the month of October in Rome for the occasion.

The Australian delegation was led by Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President and Archbishop of Perth, Timothy Costelloe SDB, who described the experience as a great honour and privilege.

“As the Synod draws to a close, and I look back over the last three to four weeks, being one of the president delegates sitting beside the pope and helping him to preside over the Synod and ensure that everything runs smoothly, it was a great honour, and a great privilege and I was really pleased to be able to do it,” Archbishop Costelloe said.