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SUGGESTED THEMES FOR MEDITATION AND SHARING

DURING THE CONDUCT OF THE SECOND PARISH SYNODAL CONSULTATIONS
IN THE DIOCESE OF ILAGAN

THEME NUMBER 1
(Synthesis Report, Section 1)
Synodality: Experience and Understanding

Convergences

a) Synodality as the process of renewal in the Church that promotes the

heightened awareness of our identity as the faithful People of God, within which
each is the bearer of a dignity derived from Baptism, and each is called to
differentiated co-responsibility for the common mission of evangelisation.

b) This process has renewed our experience of and desire for the Church as God's
home and family, a Church that is closer to the lives of Her people, less
bureaucratic and more relational.

c) Emblematic of a synodal way of being Church is the image of the Eucharist,

which is the source and summit of synodality, with the Word of God at the centre.

d) The synodal process expresses as entering into the cycle of discussions and
prayers, deepening our sense of communion by listening to one another.

e) The synod process manifests hope, healing, reconciliation, and restoration of

trust by means of openness to listening and accompanying all, including those
who have suffered abuse and hurt in the Church.

It also involves the long journey towards reconciliation and justice, including
addressing the structural conditions that abetted such abuse, remains before us,
and requires concrete gestures of penitence.

f) “Synodality" speak of a mode of being Church that integrates communion,

mission, and participation.
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h) In its broadest sense, synodality can be understood as Christians walking in

communion with Christ toward the Kingdom along with the whole of humanity.
Its orientation is towards mission, and its practice involves gathering in assembly
at each level of ecclesial life. It involves reciprocal listening, dialogue, community
discernment, and creation of consensus as an expression that renders Christ
present in the Holy Spirit, each taking decisions in accordance with their
responsibilities.

Matters for Consideration

j) Building on the reflective work already undertaken, there is a need to clarify the
meaning of synodality at different levels, in pastoral, theological, and canonical
terms. This helps to avert the risk that the concept sounds too vague or generic or
appears as a fad or fashion. It enables us to offer a broad understanding of
walking together with further theological deepening and clarification.

l) In particular, the many expressions of synodal life in cultural contexts where

people are used to walking together as a community and where individualism has
not taken root, should be considered for deeper reflection. In this way, synodal
practice plays an important part in the Church's prophetic response to an
individualism that causes people to turn in on themselves, a populism that
divides, and a globalisation that homogenises and flattens. Although not solving
these problems, it nonetheless provides an alternative way of being and acting for
our times, integrating a diversity of perspectives. This is a hopeful alternative that
needs further exploration and illumination.

Proposals

m) Expanding participation,and overcoming the obstacles to participation.

n) Involvement of the clergy (deacons, priests, bishops) more actively in the

synodal process vs. resistance.

o) The synodal culture needs to become more intergenerational, with spaces for
young people to speak freely for themselves, within their families, and with their
peers and pastors, including through digital channels.
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THEME NUMBER 2
(Synthesis Report, Section 4)
People in Poverty, Protagonists of the Church's Journey

Convergences

a) Those in poverty ask the Church for love. By love, they mean respect,
acceptance and recognition, without which providing food, money or social
services represents forms of support that are certainly important but which do
not fully take account of the dignity of the person.

Each person needs to be enabled to determine their own means of growth rather
than be the object of the welfare action of others. Being afforded recognition and
respect are powerful ways of enabling this.

b) The preferential option for the poor is implicit in Christological faith: Jesus,
poor and humble, befriended people in poverty, shared a table with them, and
denounced the causes of poverty. For the Church, the preferential option for the
poor and those at the margins is a theological category before being a cultural,
sociological, political or philosophical one.

c) Poverty is not just of one kind. Among the many faces of those in poverty are
those who do not have the things they need to lead a dignified life. There are also
migrants and refugees; indigenous peoples; those who suffer violence and abuse,
in particular women; people struggling with addiction; minorities who are
systematically denied a voice; abandoned elderly people; victims of racism,
exploitation, and trafficking, especially minors; exploited workers; the
economically excluded, and others living on the peripheries. The most vulnerable
of the vulnerable, on whose behalf constant advocacy is needed, include the
unborn and their mothers. The cry of the "new poor" produced by wars and
terrorism due to corrupt political and economic systems.

d) Alongside forms of material poverty, many also experience spiritual poverty,

understood as lacking a sense of life’s meaning. An excessive preoccupation with
oneself can lead to seeing others as a threat, which in turn causes us to further
turn in on ourselves, expressing a certain kind of individualism. When the
spiritually and materially poor encounter one another, they begin a journey
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towards finding answers to each other’s needs. This is a way of walking together
that makes the perspective of the synodal Church concrete, which will reveal to
us the fullest sense of the Gospel beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Mt
5:3).

e) Standing with those who are poor requires engaging with them in caring for
our common home: the cry of the earth and the cry of those living in poverty are
the same cry. The lack of responses to this cry makes the ecological crisis, and
climate change in particular, a threat to the survival of humanity.

f) The Church’s commitment must address the causes of poverty and exclusion.
By protecting the rights of those who are excluded, by denunciation of injustices,
whether perpetrated by societal structures or by individuals, corporations or
governments, by listening to the demands and points of view of the poor, and
utilising their own words.

g) Active participation in building up the common good and defending the dignity
of life, drawing inspiration from the Church's social doctrine and working together
in various ways, through engagement in civil society organizations, trade unions,
popular movements, grassroots associations, in the field of politics, and so forth

Matters for Consideration

i) In some parts of the world, the Church is poor, with those who are poor, and for
those who are poor. There is a constant risk, one to be carefully avoided, of
viewing those living in poverty in terms of "them" and "us," as "objects" of the
Church's charity. Putting those who experience poverty at the centre and learning
from them is something the Church must do more and more.

j) Prophetic denunciation of situations of injustice, on the one hand, and efforts to

persuade policy makers to act for the common good, which require recourse to
diplomacy, on the other, must be maintained in a dynamic tension so as not to
lose a clear focus or fruitfulness. In particular, care must be taken to ensure that
the use of public or private funds by Church bodies does not limit freedom to
speak up for the demands of the Gospel.
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k) The provision of services in the fields of education, health care and social
welfare, without discrimination or the exclusion of anyone, is a clear sign of a
Church that promotes the integration and participation of the most vulnerable in
Church and society. Organizations active in this field are encouraged to consider
themselves as expressions of the Christian community and to avoid charity
becoming impersonal. They are also urged to network and coordinate with
others.

l) The Church must be honest in examining how it meets the demands of justice
among those who work in its affiliated institutions so as to ensure it acts with
consistency and integrity.

m) In a synodal Church, solidarity also manifests itself in the form of an exchange

of gifts and in sharing resources between local churches from different regions.
Priests who come to the aid of churches needing clergy are not providing merely a
functional solution but represent a resource for the growth both of the Church
that sends them and the Church that receives them. Similarly, it is necessary to
ensure that economic aid does not degenerate into the mere provision of welfare,
but also promotes authentic evangelical solidarity and is managed transparently
and reliably.

Proposals

n) The Church's social doctrine is a too little-known resource. This needs to be

addressed. Local churches are invited not only to make its contents better known
but to foster its reception through practices that put its inspiration into action.

o) The experience of encounter, sharing a common life and serving those living in
poverty and on the margins should be an integral part of all formation paths
offered by Christian communities: it is a requirement of faith, not an optional
extra. This is especially true for candidates for ordained ministry and consecrated
life.

p) As part of the rethinking of diaconal ministry, the Church should promote a

stronger orientation towards service to those who are poor.
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q) Church teaching, liturgy, and practice must more explicitly and carefully
integrate the biblical and theological foundations of integral ecology.

THEME NUMBER 3
(Synthesis Report, Section 8)
Church is Mission

Convergences

a) Rather than saying that the Church has a mission, we affirm that Church ‘is’
mission.

b) The sacraments of Christian initiation confer on all the disciples of Jesus the
responsibility for the mission of the Church. Laymen and laywomen, those in
consecrated life, and ordained ministers have equal dignity. They have received
different charisms and vocations and exercise different roles and functions, but all
are called and nourished by the Holy Spirit to form one body in Christ (1 Cor. 4-
31). They are all disciples, all missionaries, in the reciprocal vitality of local
communities who experience the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing.
The exercise of co-responsibility is essential for synodality and is necessary at all
levels of the Church. Each Christian is a mission on this earth.

c) The family is the pillar of every Christian community. Parents and grandparents
and all those who live and share their faith in the family are the first missionaries.
The family, as a community of life and love, is a privileged place of education in
faith and Christian practice, one that needs special accompaniment within
communities. Support is especially needed for parents who must reconcile work,
including within the Church community and in service to its mission, with the
demands of family life.

d) If the mission is a grace involving all the Church, the lay faithful contribute in a
vital way to advancing that mission in all areas and in the ordinary situations of
every day. Above all, it is they who make the Church present and who proclaim
the Gospel, for example, in digital culture, which has such a strong impact
throughout the world; in youth culture; in the world of work and business,
politics, and the arts and culture; in scientific research, education, and training; in
the care of our common home; and especially through participation in public life.
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Wherever they are present, they are called to witness to Jesus Christ in daily life
and to explicitly share the faith
with others. In a special way, young people, with their gifts and fragilities, growing
in friendship with Jesus, become apostles of the Gospel to their peers.

e) The lay faithful are also increasingly present and active in service within
Christian communities. Many of them organize and animate pastoral
communities, serve as religious educators, theologians and formators, spiritual
animators and catechists, and participate in various parish and diocesan bodies. In
many regions, the life of Christian communities and the mission of the Church
depends upon catechists. In addition, lay people serve in safeguarding and
administration. All of these contributions are indispensable to the mission of the
Church; for this reason, the
acquisition of necessary competences should be provided for.

f) In their immense variety, the charisms of the laity represent distinct gifts to the
Church from the Holy Spirit that must be called forth, recognized, and fully
appreciated. In some situations, the laity may be called to help make up for the
shortage of priests, with the danger that the lay character of their apostolate risks
being diminished. In other contexts, it may be that priests do everything
themselves and thus the charisms and ministries of the laity are ignored
orunderutilized. In all contexts, there is a danger of "clericalizing" the laity,
creating a kind of lay elite that perpetuates inequalities and divisions among the
People of God.

g) The mission ad gentes is mutually enriching for the Churches, because it not
only involves the missionaries themselves but the entire community, which in this
way is inspired to prayer, the sharing of goods, and witness. Churches lacking
clergy should not give up this commitment, while those with more vocations to
the ordained ministry benefit from cooperating pastorally in a genuinely
evangelical manner. All the missionaries -- laymen and women, those in
consecrated life, deacons and priests, and particularly the members of missionary
institutes and fidei donum missionaries -- are an important resource for creating
bonds of knowledge and exchange of gifts.

h) The Church's mission is continually renewed and nourished by the Eucharist,

particularly when its communal and missionary nature is fully expressed.
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Matters for Consideration

i) There is a need to continue to deepen the theological understanding of the

relationships between charisms and ministries in a missionary key.

j) Vatican II and subsequent magisterial teaching present the distinctive mission of

the laity in terms of the sanctification of temporal or secular realities. However,
the reality is that pastoral practice at the parish, diocesan and, recently, even
universal levels, increasingly entrusts lay people with tasks and ministries within
the Church itself.

k) In the promotion of the co-responsibility of all the baptized for mission we

recognize theapostolic capacities of persons with disabilities. We want to better
value the contribution to evangelisation offered by the immense richness of their
humanity.

l) Pastoral structures need to be re-organized so they can readily recognise, call

forth, and animate lay charisms and ministries, inserting them into the missionary
dynamism of the synodal Church.

Proposals

n) We need more creativity in establishing ministries according to the needs of

local churches, with the particular involvement of the young; or further expanding
responsibilities assigned to the existing ministry of lector, responsibilities that are
already broader than those performed in the liturgy. This could become a fuller
ministry of the Word of God, which, in appropriate contexts, could also include
preaching. We could also explore the possibility of establishing a ministry
assigned to married couples committed to supporting family life and
accompanying people preparing for the Sacrament of Marriage.

o) Local churches are invited to consider appropriate means and moments of

acknowledgment by the community of lay charisms and ministries. This could
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happen on the occasion of a liturgical celebration in which the pastoral mandate

is bestowed.

THEME NUMBER 4
(Synthesis Report, Section 9)
Women in the Life and Mission of the Church

Convergences

a) We are created, male and female, in the image and likeness of God. From the
beginning, creationmanifests unity and difference, bestowing on women and men
a shared nature, calling, and destiny, and two distinct experiences of being
human. Sacred Scripture testifies to thecomplementarity and reciprocity of
women and men, and to the covenant between them that lies at the heart of
God’s design for creation. Jesus considered women his interlocutors: he spoke
with them about the Kingdom of God; he welcomed them as disciples, as for
example Mary of Bethany. These women, who experienced His power of healing,
liberation and recognition,
travelled with Him on the road from Galilee to Jerusalem (Lk 8,1-3). He entrusted
theannouncement of the Resurrection on Easter morning to a woman, Mary
Magdalene.

b) In Christ, women and men are clothed with the same baptismal dignity (Gal
3:28) and receive equally the variety of gifts of the Spirit. We are called together
into a communion of loving, non- competitive relationships in Christ, and to a co-
responsibility to be expressed at every level of the Church’s life. We are, as Pope
Francis said to us together, “a people convened and called with the strength of
the Beatitudes”.

c) The Church adopt a more decisive commitment to understand and accompany

women from a pastoral and sacramental point of view. Women desire to share
their spiritual experience of journeying towards holiness in the various stages of
life: as young women, as mothers, in their friendships and relationships, in family
life at all ages, in working life, and in consecrated life. Women cry out for justice
in societies still marked by sexual violence, economic inequality and the
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tendencyto treat them as objects. Women are scarred by trafficking, forced

migration and war. Pastoral accompaniment and vigorous advocacy for women
should go hand in hand.

d) Women make up most of those in our pews and are often the first missionaries
of the faith in the family. Consecrated women, both in contemplative and
apostolic life, are a fundamental and distinctive gift, sign and witness in our midst.
The long history of women missionaries, saints, theologians and mystics is also a
powerful source of nourishment and inspiration for women and men today.

e) Mary of Nazareth, woman of faith and Mother of God, remains for all a unique
source of theological, ecclesial and spiritual meaning. Mary reminds us of the
universal call to listen attentively to God and to remain open to the Holy Spirit.
She knew the joy of bearing and nurturing and endured pain and suffering. She
gave birth in impoverished conditions, became a refugee and lived the sorrow of
her Son’s brutal killing, but she also knew the magnificence of his Resurrection
and the glory of Pentecost.

f) Many women expressed deep gratitude for the work of priests and bishops.
They also spoke of a Church that wounds. Clericalism, a chauvinist mentality and
inappropriate expressions of authority continue to scar the face of the Church and
damage its communion. A profound spiritual conversion is needed as the
foundation for any effective structural change. Sexual abuse and the abuse of
power and authority continue to cry out for justice, healing and reconciliation. We
asked how the Church can be a place that safeguards all.

g) Where dignity and justice are undermined in relationships between men and
women in the Church, we weaken the credibility of our proclamation to the
world. Our synodal path shows the need for relational renewal and structural
changes. In this way we can better welcome the participation and contribution of
all – with lay and consecrated women and men, deacons, priests, and bishops – as
co-responsible disciples in the work of mission.

h) The Assembly asks that we avoid repeating the mistake of talking about women
as an issue or a problem. Instead, we desire to promote a Church in which men
and women dialogue together, in order to understand more deeply the horizon of
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God's project, that sees them together as protagonists, without subordination,

exclusion and competition.

Matters for Consideration

i) The active contribution of women should be recognised and valued, and that
their pastoral leadership increase in all areas of the Church's life and mission. In
order to give better expression to the gifts and charisms of all and to be more
responsive to pastoral needs, how can the Church include more women in
existing roles and ministries? If new ministries are required, who should discern
these, at what levels and in what ways?

j) Different positions have been expressed regarding women's access to the

diaconal ministry. For some, this step would be unacceptable because they
consider it a discontinuity with Tradition. For others, however, opening access for
women to the diaconate would restore the practice of the Early Church. Others
still, discern it as an appropriate and necessary response to the signs of the times,
faithful to the Tradition, and one that would find an echo in the hearts of many
who
seek new energy and vitality in the Church. Some express concern that the
request speaks of a worrying anthropological confusion, which, if granted, would
marry the Church to the spirit of the age.

Proposals

l) Local churches are encouraged to extend their work of listening,

accompaniment and care to the most marginalised women in their social
contexts.

m) It is urgent to ensure that women can participate in decision-making processes

and assume roles of responsibility in pastoral care and ministry. The Holy Father
has significantly increased the number of women in positions of responsibility in
the Roman Curia. This should also happen at other levels of Church life, in
consecrated life and dioceses.
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n) Theological and pastoral research on the access of women to the diaconate

should be continued, benefiting from consideration of the results of the
commissions specially established by the Holy Father, and from the theological,
historical and exegetical research already undertaken.

o) Cases of labour injustice and unfair remuneration within the Church need to be
addressed especially for women in consecrated life, who are too often treated as
cheap labour.

p) Women’s access to formation programmes and theological study needs to be

considerably expanded. We suggest that women should also be integrated into
seminary teaching and training programs to foster better formation for ordained
ministry.

q) There is a need to ensure that liturgical texts and Church documents are more
attentive to the use of language that takes into equal consideration both men and
women, and also includes a range of words, images and narratives that draw
more widely on women's experience.

r) We propose that women receive appropriate formation to enable them to be

judges in all canonical processes.
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THEME NUMBER 5
(Synthesis Report, Section 17)
Mission in the Digital Environment

Convergences

a) Digital culture represents a fundamental change in the way we conceive of

reality and consequently relate to ourselves, one another, our surroundings, and
even to God. The digital environment changes our learning processes as well as
our perception of time, space, our bodies, interpersonal relationships and,
indeed, much of our way of thinking. The dualism between real and virtual does
not adequately describe the reality and experience of people, especially the
youngest, the so-called "digital natives."

b) Digital culture, then, is not so much a distinct area of mission as a crucial

dimension of the Church's witness in contemporary culture. This is why it holds
special significance in a synodal Church.

c) Missionaries have always gone with Christ to new frontiers, while the Holy
Spirit pushed and preceded them. It is up to us to reach today's culture in all
spaces where people seek meaning and love, including the spaces they enter
through their cell phones and tablets.

d) We cannot evangelize digital culture without first understanding it. Young

people, and among them, seminarians, young priests, and young consecrated
men and women, who often have profound and direct experience of it, are best
suited to carry out the Church's mission in the digital environment, as well as to
accompany the rest of the community, including pastors, in becoming more
familiar with its dynamics.

e) Within the synodal process, the initiatives of the “Digital Synod” (“The Church
Listens to You” Project) show the potential of the digital environment approached
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in a missionary key, the creativity and generosity of those who engage in it, and
the importance of providing them with training, accompaniment and
opportunities for peer-to-peer discussion and collaboration.

Matters for Consideration

f) The Internet is increasingly present in the lives of children and families. While it
has great potential to improve people's lives, it can also cause harm and injury,
such as through intimidation, disinformation, sexual exploitation, and addiction.
There is an urgent need to consider how the Christian community can support
families in ensuring that the online space is not only safe but also spiritually life-
giving.

g) There are many valuable and useful Church-related online initiatives that
provide excellent catechesis and faith formation. Unfortunately, there are also
sites where faith-related issues are addressed in a superficial, polarized and even
hate-filled manner. As a Church and as individual digital missionaries, we have a
duty to ask ourselves how we can ensure that our online presence constitutes an
experience of growth for those with whom we communicate.

h) Online apostolic initiatives have a reach and scope that extends beyond
traditionally understood territorial boundaries. This raises important questions
about how they can be regulated and which ecclesiastical authority should be
responsible for supervision.

i) We must also consider the implications of the new digital missionary frontier for
the renewal of existing parish and diocesan structures. In an increasingly digital
world, how do we avoid being trapped within a mindset that seeks only to
conserve what we are already doing and instead unleash new energies for new
forms of mission?

j) The COVID-19 pandemic stimulated a range of creative online pastoral

initiatives that reduced the effects of the experience of isolation and loneliness
experienced particularly by elderly and vulnerable community members. Catholic
educational institutions also used online platforms effectively to continue offering
formation and catechesis during lockdowns. We need to assess what this
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experience has taught us and what the lasting benefits might be for the Church's
mission
in the digital environment.

k) While young people do seek beauty, many young people have abandoned the
physical spaces of Church into which we continue to try to invite them, favouring
instead online spaces. This has implications for how we try to engage them and
seek to offer them formation and [Link] is something to consider from a
pastoral perspective.

Proposals

l) We need to provide opportunities for recognising, forming, and accompanying

those already working as digital missionaries, while also facilitating networking
amongst them.

m) It is important to create collaborative networks of influencers that include

people of other religions or indeed who may profess no faith, but who wish to
collaborate on common causes to promote human dignity, justice, and care for
our common home.
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THEME NUMBER 6
(Synodal Report, Section 18)
Structures for Participation

Convergences

a) As members of the faithful People of God, all the baptised are co-responsible
for mission, each according to his or her vocation, competence and experience.
Therefore, all contribute to imagining and discerning steps to reform Christian
communities and the Church as a whole. In this way, the Church experiences "the
sweet and comforting joy of evangelising." The purpose of synodality, in the
composition and functioning of the bodies in which it takes shape, is mission. Co-
responsibility is for mission: this attests that we are truly gathered in the name of
Jesus, this frees the bodies of participation from bureaucratic limitations and
worldly logics of power, and makes gathering fruitful.

b) In the light of the recent teaching of the Church (in particular, Lumen gentium
and Evangelii gaudium), this co-responsibility of all in mission must be the
criterion underlying the structuring of Christian communities and the entire local
church with all its services, in all its institutions, in each of its pastoral bodies (cf 1
Cor 12:4-31). The proper recognition of the laity for mission in the world cannot
become a pretext for assigning the care of the Christian community to bishops
and priests alone.

c) The authority par excellence is that of the Word of God, which must inspire
every meeting of participatory bodies, every consultation and every decision-
making process. For this to happen, it is necessary that, at every level, the
gathering draws meaning and strength from the Eucharist and takes place in the
light of the Word heard and shared in prayer.
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d) The composition of the various councils for the discernment and decision-
making of a synodal missionary community must provide for the presence of men
and women who have an apostolic disposition, distinguished not by their frequent
presence in church, but by a genuine evangelical witness in ordinary life. The
People of God are all the more missionary when they can make the voices of
those already living the mission by inhabiting the world and its peripheries
resonate within themselves, including in participatory bodies.
Matters for Consideration

e) In light of what we have shared, it is important to ask how we can promote

participation in the various councils when many feel they are not up to the task.
Synodality grows when each member is involved in processes and decision-
making for the mission of the Church. In this sense, we are encouraged by many
small Christian communities in the emerging Churches, who live the closeness of
the day-to-day, around the Word of God and the Eucharist.

f) In Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis entrusted the Church to make changes to the
composition of participatory bodies, this task cannot be further delayed. The
participation of baptised men and women living in complex situations of loving
relationship "can be expressed in different ecclesial services, which necessarily
requires discerning which of the various forms of exclusion currently practised in
the liturgical, pastoral, educational and institutional framework, can be
surmounted” (299). This discernment also concerns their exclusion from parish
and diocesan community participation bodies as experienced in some local
churches.

g) From the perspective of the uniqueness of ecclesial communion: how can we

interweave the consultative and deliberative aspects of synodality? Given the
variety of charismatic and ministerial gifts of the People of God, how do we
integrate the tasks of advising, discerning, and deciding in the various
participatory bodies.

Proposals

h) Based on the understanding of the People of God as the active subject of the
mission of evangelisation, we suggest legislating for the obligatory nature of
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Pastoral Councils in Christian communities and local churches. It would also be

desirable to strengthen the bodies of participation, with a proper presence of the
laity, recognising the role they can play in discerning decisions by virtue of their
baptism.

i) Participatory bodies represent the first instance in which to experience the

accountability of those who exercise responsibility. While we warmly welcome
and support their commitment, in turn, they are invited to practice the culture of
accountability to the community of which they are an expression.