Card. Zuppi: “We do not resign ourselves to the reality of an ailing society”

“Today we return to the place where it all began, to the See of Peter, where on 30 January 2021, in his speech to the National Catechetical Office, the Pope encouraged us to embark resolutely on the Synodal Journey. We are thankful for his paternal solicitude, so constantly directed to the Churches of Italy, and we assure him of our prayers for his good health.” In his introductory remarks to the second Synodal Assembly of the Churches in Italy - the first was held in November in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls - Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Bishops' Conference, turned his thoughts to the Holy Father, who is convalescing at Casa Santa Marta after 38 days of hospitalisation at the Gemelli Polyclinic following the onset of bilateral pneumonia. Pope Francis, who was not present, sent a message of encouragement to the gathering of one thousand participants, including bishops representing their dioceses and other invitees.

“Christian joy is never exclusive, it is always inclusive, it is for everyone,” the message reads, “it is a gift from God, it is not easily attained, it does not come from simplistic solutions to problems, it does not avoid the cross,

it flows from the certainty that the Lord is always at our side. I experienced this during my stay in hospital and again during this time of convalescence.”
“The Church is not made up of majorities or minorities,”
Francis remarks, exhorting the Italian Church to allow herself to be guided by “the creative harmony generated by the Holy Spirit.” In a world “enticed by the force of an ego that is imposing and resolute, with solutions that at times seem grotesque and other times alarming and dangerous,” Christian joy “is the joy of the community, of the Church, not for the ecclesial elite, but finally in the plural and for all," said the president of the Italian Bishops' Conference. Indeed,
“There can be no Christian joy without participating fully part in human history”,
without being actively involved in people’ lives, without reading the signs of the times, without showing love for all, especially for those who find themselves, through no fault of their own, marginalised in existential peripheries." “The joy we want to proclaim is our joy, because it is also the joy of the Church as a whole. It is a joy that is also open and freely offered to every man and woman today”, Zuppi added, noting that

“the style of ecclesial listening was one of the first fruits of the Synodal journey,

to which corresponded the freedom of those who shared their thoughts, who felt involved and welcomed. We must not lose this momentum as we look to the future".
“We all know that it is people who change structures, and not vice versa’,
the message for this final phase: “If deemed necessary, we will certainly not shy away from the responsibility to change procedures at a diocesan, regional and even national level, but let us not lose sight of the spiritual horizon that guides our steps.”
“Let us not resign ourselves to the reality of an ailing society,
as if we had nothing to say or to offer” Zuppi said: “From the fraternity of the few to boundless human fraternity. It is my hope that at the end of this Second Synodal Assembly of the Churches in Italy we will all come together to affirm that we are building open communities, imbued with the presence of God and of humanity”.

“Our Church is alive",

said Monsignor Erio Castellucci, President of the National Committee of the Synodal Journey, outlining the fruits of the Synodal Journey that have already matured, while presenting the Propositions to be voted on at the Second Synodal Assembly of the Churches in Italy, which will form the basis of the final document to be published at the next Assembly of the CEI in May. Although “in a different form compared to the past, even the recent past, the Church is nevertheless alive, she is not in a vegetative state, she is not in a terminal phase. She is simply listening attentively to the voice of the Holy Spirit, which calls for renewed ways of being present and taking action.” “There can be no premature enthusiasm that foretells a new springtime for the Church, nor discouragement that announces its inevitable decline,” said Bishop Castellucci. “Those who have participated in some way in the Synodal Journey should adopt a healthy realism, starting from a truth of faith – he remarked - the Spirit of the Risen Lord has not retreated into private life, but continues to blow in the daily life of our communities. This continuous flow of goodness, unrecorded by statistics, is also the greatest - yet often hidden - treasure that has been born of these four synodal years.”

“To streamline: to relieve what has become too cumbersome for us to continue our journey together.”

Lucia Capuzzi, member of the National Committee of the Synodal Journey, thus summarised the proposal of the final phase of the journey: “Far from regretting the loss of worldly power and prestige, of large numbers and imposing structures, the question we must ask ourselves with a sincere heart is how and what we need to change in the forms and styles of our own historical past so as to continue to offer a foundation for our hope today,” she explained, tracing the three phases of the Synodal Journey - narrative, sapiential and prophetic - which are intended to bring to fruition the intuitions of Pope Francis in Evangelii gaudium: “A Church rooted in the Good News, welcoming and inclusive, attentive to relationships and witness rather than to the preservation of its structures. A Church committed to the preferential option for the poor. A Church capable of confronting inequality, of mending broken relationships and the fragmented threads of a fractured world. A Church called to be an instrument of peace in an age marked by wars and increasing conflict, building positive alliances with all men and women of good will across religious and cultural traditions, a Church called to promote human fraternity. Working together to promote more humane alternatives for living as human beings in the face of mounting inhumanity.”M.Michela Nicolais