Synod: Work begins to write Instrumentum Laboris for October assembly

By Vatican News staff reporter

Works to produce the Instrumentum Laboris of the Synodal Assembly of October 2023 are underway.

In a press release issued on Wednesday, the General Secretariat of the Synod announced that as of 12 April, and for the next week, a group of experts from five continents who participated in various capacities in  the 2021-2024 synodal process are meeting at the General Secretariat’s headquarters in the Vatican.

They will spend time discerning the Continental Stage and the seven final documents of the Continental Synodal Assemblies.

Their aim is to start the reflection that will lead, at a later stage, to the drafting of the Instrumentum Laboris, the working document for the first session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, set to take place in the Vatican from 4-29 October 2023.

After a moment of prayer and the introductory session, the work will include a wide-ranging sharing on the Continental Stage as a whole and on the experience lived during the seven continental synodal assemblies.

Subsequently, the Final Documents received by the General Secretariat of the Synod, the fruit of the communitarian discernment of the people of God, will be analysed in detail in order to highlight issues and priorities to be studied in depth during the October assembly.

Each day will be marked by the daily celebration of the Eucharist and moments of personal and communal prayer, and the work will take place behind closed doors.

At the end of the meeting, a press conference will be held on 20 April 2023.

This is the list of the participants in this week's encounter: Cardinal Mario Grech; Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich; Bishop Luis Marin de San Martín; Sr. Nathalie Becquart; Archbishop Timothy Costelloe; Bishop Lucio Andrice Muandula; Bishop Daniel Flores; Msgr. Pierangelo Sequeri; Msgr. Piero Coda; Msgr. Tomasz Trafny; Fr. Giacomo Costa; Fr. Dario Vitali; Sr. Shizue Hirota; Fr. Giuseppe Bonfrate; Prof. Myriam Wylens; Prof. Anna Rowlands; Fr. Pasquale Bua; Rev. Sr. Marie-Kolbe Zamora; Mr. Paolo Foglizzo; Mr. Thierry Bonaventura; Ms. Susan Pascoe (online); Mr. Mauricio Lopez Oropeza (online).