On Sunday, Pope Francis announced that the Synod on Synodality shall be prolonged. As an alternative of 1 final meeting within the Vatican in October 2023, there’ll now be two Vatican meetings: One in Oct. 2023 and one other in Oct. 2024.
This week on “Contained in the Vatican,” veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and host Colleen Dulle explain the pope’s reasoning behind this decision, and whether the extension of the synodal process makes this synod, as some have said in recent days, a form of “Vatican III.”
[Missed our deep dive episode on the Synod on Synodality? Listen here!]
The hosts also discuss what message Pope Francis is sending by extending the synod: Is it an indication he doesn’t intend to resign, an effort to make sure synodality continues with future popes, or just a declaration that becoming a “listening church” is one in all his top priorities?
Within the second a part of the show, Colleen and Gerry discuss the pope’s recent book, I Ask You within the Name of God. Ten Prayers for a Way forward for Hope. Colleen explains the papal speech on economics that the book relies on, and Gerry gives his takeaways from the amount. The hosts revisit the query of where books like these fall within the hierarchy of papal teachings.
After this show was recorded, America published a report by Kenneth Woodward on the key identity of a Jesuit who shepherded greater than 150 canonization causes through the church’s saint-making process. Read “The ultimate secret of the Vatican’s Jesuit saint maker” here.
Links from the show:
Deep dive: The ‘Synod on Synodality’ — What’s done and what comes next?
Pope Francis’ 9 commandments for a just economy
WATCH: The Pope, the Environmental Crisis, and Frontline Leaders | The Letter: Laudato Si Film on YouTube
