60th Anniversary Of The Opening Of The II Vatican Council

October 11, 2022228 views0

60th Anniversary Of The Opening Of The II Vatican Council

2022-10-11T11:47:51+01:00

By Church News

In a message marking the 60th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, the organizers of the Synod on Synodality called the Synod of Bishops a “fruit” of the council.The theme for the synod process is “For a synodal church: Communion, participation and mission.”Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops published a message on the council and synodality on Oct. 10.He wrote, “are eminently conciliar words. The church that we are called to dream and build is a community of women and men drawn together in communion by the one faith, our common baptism and the same Eucharist, in the image of God the Trinity: women and men who together, in the diversity of ministries and charisms received, actively participate in the establishment of the kingdom of God, with the missionary impetus of bringing to all the joyful witness of Christ, the only saviour of the world.”The Synod of Bishops, the cardinal noted, was established by St. Paul VI in 1965 at the beginning of Vatican II’s last session precisely “to prolong in the life and mission of the church the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, as well as to foster in the people of God the living appropriation of its teaching.”Pope Francis, the synod’s general secretariat on Monday said the synod was “indeed one of the Council’s most precious legacies.”“The purpose of the synod was and remains to prolong, in the life and mission of the Church, the spirit of the Second Vatican Council,” the message said.“The concept of ‘synodality’ is found throughout the council, even though this term (only recently coined) is not found expressly in the documents of the ecumenical assembly.”The Oct. 10 message concluded with the words of Pope Benedict XVI that the “synodal dimension is constitutive of the Church: it consists of a coming together of every people and culture in order that they become one in Christ and walk together, following him, who said: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’”ALSO READ The Vatican Library Launches New Scholarly Journal