When Pope Francis convened the XV Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for October of 2018, he billed the gathering as an opportunity for bishops from around the world to discuss young people, the faith, and vocational discernment. Imagine the synod fathers’ surprise when, presented with the first complete draft of the final document on Wednesday, they discovered that a good deal of their consultation had been concerned with the very concept of “synodality”.
To hear Ed Pentin of the National Catholic Register tell it, virtually the entire third part of the draft document was dedicated to various aspects of synodality, among them: The Missionary Synodality of the Church, and Synodality in Everyday Life. Several synod fathers apparently objected to the prominence with which a topic hardly mentioned either on the floor or in small group session came to figure in the draft of the final document.
