Pope Francis leads the Synod on Synodality delegates in prayer on Oct. 25, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Oct 26, 2023 / 06:55 am (CNA). Pope Francis denounced clericalism and called it a “scandal” to see young priests buying lace vestments at tailor shops in a strongly-worded speech to the Synod on Synodality on Wednesday.Speaking to an assembly of hundreds of synod members on Oct. 25, the pope said that when clerics overstep their roles and “mistreat the people of God, they disfigure the face of the Church with macho and dictatorial attitudes.”Pope Francis described the faithful people of God as “patiently and humbly enduring the scorn, mistreatment, and marginalization of institutionalized clericalism.”“It is enough to go into the ecclesiastical tailor shops in Rome to see the scandal of young priests trying on cassocks and hats, or albs and lace robes,” he added.“Clericalism is a thorn. It is a scourge. It is a form of worldliness that defiles and damages the face of the Lord’s bride,” he said. “It enslaves the holy, faithful people of God.”The pope made his speech during the final week of the nearly monthlong synod assembly, where he listened to the interventions of cardinals, bishops, priests, religious sisters, and laypeople speaking about “synodality” and their experiences in the Church. Pope Francis cited only one delegate’s intervention in his speech — that of Sister Liliana Franco, a Colombian religious sister who was one of 42 women who participated in the Amazon Synod, where she spoke at a controversial tree planting ceremony in the Vatican Gardens. In his speech, Pope Francis praised the female intuition that led women to approach Jesus’ empty tomb after the Resurrection. He noted that many members of the Church hierarchy received their faith from their mothers and grandmothers, adding that the faith is often transmitted “in a feminine dialect.”Much of the pope’s speech focused on “the scourge” of clericalism and worldliness, a theme that the pope has been focused on since the start of the synod.During the first week of the synod assembly, Pope Francis gave each participant a copy of a book that he wrote titled “Santi, non mondani: La grazia di Dio ci salva dalla corruzione interiore” (“Holy, not Worldly: God’s Grace Saves us from Interior Corruption”). The book is a compilation of a text published by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2005 called “Corruption and Sin” and a strongly-worded letter that Pope Francis wrote to all priests in the diocese of Rome on Aug. 5.“How naturally we speak of the princes of the Church, or of episcopal promotions as getting ahead career-wise … the worldliness that mistreats God’s holy and faithful people,” Pope Francis said in his synod speech. The pope added that he was pained to find that some parish offices offer a “price list” for sacramental services, like a “supermarket of salvation” where priests act as “mere employees of a multinational company.”“Either the Church is the faithful people of God ‘on the way,’ — holy

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost has served as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops since April 12, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News Vatican City, Oct 26, 2023 / 11:25 am (CNA). Synod on Synodality delegate Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost said this week that “clericalizing women” would not solve problems in the Catholic Church.When asked about calls for women’s governance in the Catholic Church at a synod press conference on Oct. 25, the American cardinal underlined that “the apostolic tradition is something that has been spelled out very clearly, especially if you want to talk about the question of women’s ordination to the priesthood.”“Something that needs to be said also is that ordaining women — and there’s been some women that have said this interestingly enough — ‘clericalizing women’ doesn’t necessarily solve a problem, it might make a new problem,” Prevost told journalists.“And perhaps we need to look at a new understanding or different understanding of both leadership, power, authority, and service — above all service — in the Church from the different perspectives that can be, if you will, brought to the life of the Church by women and men.”The cardinal, who has served as the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops, noted that the Catholic Church is not a mirror image of society and “needs to be different.”Prevost explained that just because a woman can be president or have many different kinds of leadership roles in the world, there is not “an immediate parallel to say, ‘In the Church therefore…’”“It isn’t as simple as saying that, ‘You know, at this stage we’re going to change the tradition of the Church after 2,000 years on any one of those points,’” he said.At the same time, he added, women are continually taking on new roles of leadership both at the Vatican and in other parts of the Church, noting that Pope Francis recently appointed Sister Simona Brambilla as the secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. “I think there will be a continuing recognition of the fact that women can add a great deal to the life of the Church on many different levels,” he said.Prevost’s comments come after Religion News Service reported that “a ‘cohort’ of nuns favoring female ordination, and especially women deacons, has formed at the synod … mainly from Latin America and some from Europe.”Pope Francis reaffirmed the impossibility of women becoming priests, or even modern Church deacons, in an interview for a book published in Italy this week. The pope said: “The fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation because her place is much more important.”“Lutherans ordain women, but still few people go to church,” Francis said. “Their priests can marry, but despite that, they can’t grow the number of ministers. The problem is cultural. We should not be naive and think that programmatic changes will bring us the solution.”Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and archbishop for

Pope Francis at the general audience at St. Peter's Square on Oct. 25, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Oct 25, 2023 / 12:13 pm (CNA). Pope Francis in his ongoing catechetical series on apostolic zeal on Wednesday spoke about the example of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the ninth-century “apostles of the Slavs” whose mission was built on three pillars: unity, inculturation, and liberty.At the center of the pope’s Oct. 25 general audience was an emphasis on the relationship — and harmonization — between culture and faith. This process of inculturation is seen in the example of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, whose task was to “study the culture of those peoples in depth,” the pope said. Pope Francis recounted the story of the two brothers as one of encounter with the Slavic people, who had to confront a “pagan” culture, thereby integrating the faith into the specific, local cultural context. Sts. Cyril and Methodius, born circa 826 and 815, respectively, hailed from modern-day Thessaloniki, Greece. Pope Francis recalled how the brothers, who came from an aristocratic family, “renounced a political career to devote themselves to monastic life.” Departing from his prepared remarks, the pope stressed that “faith must be inculturated and culture must be evangelized. The inculturation of faith, evangelization of culture — always.”At the center of the saints’ effort to evangelize was localizing the faith. For Cyril, this work consisted of developing a native, Slavic alphabet. “Indeed, to proclaim the Gospel and to pray, one needed a proper, suitable, specific tool. So, he invented the Glagolitic alphabet. He translated the Bible and liturgical texts. People felt that the Christian faith was no longer ‘foreign,’ but rather it became their faith, spoken in their mother tongue,” the pope said. The Holy Father went on to remark: “Just think: two Greek monks giving an alphabet to the Slavs. It is this openness of heart that rooted the Gospel among them.”“Some opposition emerged on the part of some Latins, who saw themselves deprived of their monopoly on preaching to the Slavs,” he said.Taking a moment to go off script, the pope emphasized: “That struggle within the Church, always like this.”“Their objection was religious, but only in appearance: God can be praised, they said, only in the three languages written on the cross: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin,” Francis continued.Again departing from the prepared text, the pope excoriated those who opposed their efforts by saying: “These were closed-minded to defend their autonomy.”The pope, showcasing Cyril’s tenacity and love of God, said: “But Cyril responds forcefully: God wants every person to praise him in their own language.”The theme of unity has been at the center of Pope Francis’ pontificate and at the fore of Synod of Synodality, which closes its first session this weekend.In the Sep. 30 public consistory for the creation of cardinals, Pope Francis reminded the newly-created cardinals that they were “representing the harmony and synodality of the Church.”“Mother Church, who speaks all languages, is one and is Catholic,” he said, stressing that “the faith is transmitted in

Delegates to the Synod on Synodality meet in the final days of the synod, Oct. 25, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Oct 25, 2023 / 13:15 pm (CNA). The Synod on Synodality has addressed the members of the Catholic Church in a letter published during the final days of the October gathering in Rome, inviting them to take an active role in “the discernment and decision-making” of the Church.“This is not about ideology but about an experience rooted in the apostolic tradition,” the letter says. Quoting from Pope Francis’ 2021 speech to open the synodal process, it says that “communion and mission can risk remaining somewhat abstract, unless we cultivate an ecclesial praxis that expresses the concreteness of synodality ... encouraging real involvement on the part of each and all.”“We lived this blessed time in profound communion with all of you. We were supported by your prayers, bearing with you your expectations, your questions, as well as your fears,” the letter says, calling the meeting “an unprecedented experience” for including laypeople in voting.“Using the conversation in the Spirit method, we have humbly shared the wealth and poverty of our communities from every continent, seeking to discern what the Holy Spirit wants to say to the Church today.”A draft of the letter was read to applause from synod delegates during a presentation Oct. 23, according to Paolo Ruffini, president of the synod’s information commission. Some changes were then incorporated into the letter before it was voted on and released to the public on Wednesday, four days before the conclusion of the Oct. 4–29 assembly. Of the 348 delegates present for the vote, 336 voted in favor of the letter and 12 voted against.Past assemblies of the Synod of Bishops have also published messages or letters to the people of God from the bishops, also called synod fathers. This letter is the first to have been approved by a synod membership with the highest participation yet of non-bishops with the right to vote — approximately 21%.“Firmly united in the hope brought by his Resurrection, we entrusted to him our common home where the cries of the earth and the poor are becoming increasingly urgent: ‘Laudate Deum!’ (‘Praise God’), as Pope Francis reminded us at the beginning of our work,” the note says.The letter acknowledges that the Vatican assembly took place amid “a world in crisis, whose wounds and scandalous inequalities resonated painfully in our hearts.”The work of the synod had “a particular gravity,” it says, given that some participants are from countries experiencing war.The general assembly of the Synod on Synodality is taking place in two sessions, in October 2023 and October 2024.“And now? We hope that the months leading to the second session in October 2024 will allow everyone to concretely participate in the dynamism of missionary communion indicated by the word ‘synod,’” the letter states.The letter says many challenges and “numerous” questions remain at the end of the synodal gathering, and a synthesis report to be published Oct. 28 “will specify

Sister María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, whose religious name was María Antonia of St. Joseph. / Credit: Public domain CNA Staff, Oct 25, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA). The Vatican on Tuesday announced that Pope Francis has authorized the promulgation of a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to an 18th-century Argentinian religious sister, paving the way for her to become the first Argentine saint.The Holy See said in a press release that Francis met with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, authorizing the dicastery to issue “the decree regarding the miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed María Antonia of Saint Joseph.”Vatican News noted that María Antonia, known affectionately as “Mama Antula,” was the founder of the House for Spiritual Exercises in Buenos Aires, Argentina.“After the expulsion of the Jesuits from the country, she went from town to town in the poor regions of northeastern Argentina promoting retreats in the Ignatian tradition,” Vatican News said. In less than a decade she offered retreats to tens of thousands of people.The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints said on its website that after settling in Buenos Aires in 1779, Antonia “soon obtained the esteem and trust of the bishop, who granted her several and extensive faculties.”She was “esteemed for her exceptional prudence,” the dicastery said, having been known for “asking for advice, before making any kind of decision, from wise people and religious authorities.” She was, for many people, “an example of humble and spontaneous simplicity, capable of edifying through her availability and wisdom.”Blessed María Antonia was born in 1730 in Silipica, Santiago del Estero, Argentina, and died on March 7, 1799, in Buenos Aires. Her body “was buried in absolute poverty in the cemetery next to the church of the Pietà of Buenos Aires,” the dicastery said; later, it was “transferred to the same, where today it is a destination for pilgrimages.”She was proclaimed Venerable in 2010 and beatified in 2016.ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, reported on Tuesday that the Catholic Church in Argentina experienced a “historic day” of “immense joy” upon learning of the Holy Father’s announcement.The Holy House of Spiritual Exercises proudly posted on Facebook of the “first Argentine saint!” while wishing that her “holiness be an impulse for the evangelization of our homeland.”Auxiliary Bishop Ernesto Giobando of Buenos Aires showed a similar excitement, according to ACI Prensa, with the prelate writing on Facebook: “Dear friends: Thank God and our first Argentine saint.”Father Pedro Brassesco, who is in Rome participating in the Synod of Synodality, also referred to the event on his Facebook account, noting: “How beautiful it would be if Pope Francis could go to Argentina to canonize her.”

Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/ACI Prensa ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 25, 2023 / 19:00 pm (CNA). Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, the primatial archbishop of Mexico, downplayed the issues that have generated some controversy during the Synod on Synodality and believes that this assembly “will not enter into concrete proposals on these issues.”Just one week before the end of the first session of the Synod on Synodality, the cardinal shared his impressions from Rome with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, on the event that began Oct. 4 with the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.”Controversial issues at the Synod on SynodalityAguiar said he is “very satisfied” with what has happened during the first three weeks of the synod. He noted that during this time “we have shared our socio-cultural and ecclesial realities from all corners of the world in the general congregations, and more intensely those of Latin America, in the small circles.”He also emphasized that the controversial topics surrounding the Synod on Synodality — such as the female diaconate, priestly ordination for married men, or issues related to the LGBT community — “have not been a central issue” but rather “they have appeared peripherally, without any consequence.”He stressed that, in his opinion, the synod “will not enter into specific proposals on these topics, but rather they will continue to be studied in more depth by specialists in each subject.”During the third week of the synod, topics such as pastoral ministry to LGBT people and the female diaconate were addressed. During the meetings, the structure of the Church was also discussed, with the aim of giving form to a “more synodal” future.The president of the synod’s information commission and prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, Paolo Ruffini, downplayed the debate on the inclusion of LGBT issues, stating that “the blessing of homosexual couples is not the topic of the synod.”In addition to these issues, the synod has also addressed debates related to the female diaconate and the possibility of women giving homilies. Regarding the fact that one of the topics discussed in the synod is the “revision of the structure of the Church,” Aguiar told ACI Prensa that it is fundamentally about “raising our awareness of the need to train priests who assume authority as a service and not as command exercised in a pyramidal manner.”The cardinal emphasized that “we must promote pastoral units: that is, the joint leadership of neighboring parishes, which assume a single pastoral coordination.”According to the cardinal, “synodality means assuming co-responsibility for evangelization in diocesan structures, through processes that lead to listening to the word of God, especially the Gospels, to integrate small communities within the parish, and then collaborate together in processes of mission to those who are most distanced [from the Church].”Challenges of the Church in Latin AmericaFor the primatial archbishop of Mexico, the most urgent problem that the Church in Latin America must face is “to take advantage of the popular religiosity nurtured for centuries and to

null / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA. Vatican City, Oct 24, 2023 / 07:58 am (CNA). Pope Francis accepted the resignation of 59-year-old Polish Bishop Grzegorz Kaszak on Tuesday following public calls for him to step down over poor management of scandals involving priests in his diocese.Kaszak, who had led the southern Polish Diocese of Sosnowiec since 2009, had recently faced blowback from local media for his response to a priest of his diocese allegedly being caught hosting an orgy with a male prostitute at the end of August.In a letter posted to the diocese’s website Oct. 24, Kaszak said he requested his resignation from Pope Francis on Sept. 29.“I also ask everyone to forgive my human limitations. If I have offended anyone or neglected anything, I am very sorry for it,” the bishop said.The diocese said in a Sept. 22 press statement that it had become aware from media reports of an orgy held the night of Aug. 30 in a building belonging to the Parish of St. Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels in the city of Dąbrowa Górnicza. According to reports, emergency services were called for a prostitute who lost consciousness during the course of the night.The diocese said it was investigating the incident and that there was no doubt about the participation of a priest identified as Father Tomasz Z., who was subsequently “deprived of all Church offices and functions until the matter is resolved.” The priest was also sent away from his parish.“Church law provides for the most severe penalties for clergy who have committed such offenses, up to and including expulsion from the clerical state,” the statement said.A Sept. 29 statement from the diocesan curia said the Diocese of Sosnowiec “maintains its will to fully clarify the matter and punish those responsible for the scandal, in accordance with the provisions of Church law.”“We are aware of the harm done to all the faithful, whose faith could have been wounded and shaken in the face of these events, as well as the righteous indignation of public opinion,” it said. “The harm suffered by the person involved in the incident in Dąbrowa Górnicza who needed medical help is also important to us.”According to local media, the alleged orgy was just the latest in a series of scandals involving priests in the Sosnowiec Diocese. Kaszak had also been accused of a lack of transparency about the cause of the sudden death of a priest and a deacon in March.Unofficial reports claim that a 46-year-old priest committed suicide by jumping in front of a train after he allegedly stabbed a 26-year-old deacon to death.In 2013, the Vatican closed the diocesan seminary of Sosnowiec after the school’s rector, identified as Father Mariusz T., was caught on video allegedly engaging in sexual activity in a gay club in Krakow in 2010.According to the Polish bishops’ conference, Pope Francis has named Archbishop Adrian Galbas, SAC, coadjutor of Katowice, as apostolic administrator of the Sosnowiec Diocese until the appointment of a new bishop.Galbas is currently in Rome to participate

Pope Francis arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Jan. 31, 2023. The streets of the pope’s five-mile drive from the N’Dolo Airport to the presidential residence were lined with thousands of locals who cheered and waved flags. / Credit: Vatican Media CNA Staff, Oct 24, 2023 / 10:18 am (CNA). New data from the Vatican show that Africa added the greatest number of Catholics in 2021 out of all the continents and that all the world’s continents registered at least a modest increase in the number of Catholics in 2021 — except for Europe, which continued a yearslong decline. The annual report, released Oct. 22 by the Vatican’s Fides news agency on the occasion of World Mission Sunday, covers the one-year time period of Dec. 31, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2021. World Mission Sunday was established by Pope Pius XI in 1926 and is usually observed on the third Sunday of October. Catholics in the world numbered 1,375,852,000 people at the end of 2021, with an overall increase of 16.2 million compared with the previous year, the report states. The African continent gained 40 million people in the time frame studied, 8.3 million of whom are Catholic. Pope Francis has shown particular pastoral attention to Africa this year, making a visit to the heavily Catholic Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan early in 2023. The world’s percentage of Catholics decreased very slightly compared with the previous year, standing at 17.67% in 2021 as opposed to 17.7% the previous year, the report says. The total number of persons per priest in the world increased, to an average of 15,556, which is about 3,373 Catholics per priest. Worldwide, the total number of priests dropped by 2,347 to approximately 408,000. Europe suffered the largest drop, with 3,632 fewer priests from the previous year. Balancing out that loss, however, was a net gain of more than 1,500 priests in Africa and about half that many in Asia. The Americas lost nearly a thousand priests, and Oceania recorded a small gain of less than a dozen. The decline in the number of priests in 2021 was less dramatic than in 2020 when Fides recorded a decrease of 4,117 compared with 2019.  (The Fides statistics do not mention baptism rates, but other data show that in addition to a higher baptism rate, Africa has a far higher rate of Mass attendance in countries with large Catholic populations. An analysis done earlier this year by CARA found that Nigeria, Kenya, and Lebanon have the highest proportion of Catholics who attend Mass weekly or more, with Nigeria as the clear leader with 94% of Catholics reporting they attend Mass at least weekly. In Kenya, the figure was 73%, and in Lebanon it was 69%. In comparison, in Germany, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, less than 15% say they attend Mass weekly.)The number of permanent deacons changed little, with a gain of 541 worldwide for a total of 49,176. Europe and the Americas showed the strongest gains with 150 and 139 additional permanent deacons respectively.The number of male religious

Australian theologian Father Ormond Rush addresses the General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 23, 2023, in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. / Credit: Vatican Media livestream Vatican City, Oct 23, 2023 / 14:44 pm (CNA). Vatican II’s discussion of tradition is the authority for the Synod on Synodality’s reflections today, a theologian and Australian Catholic priest told delegates as the assembly’s final week kicked off Monday.“Having listened to you over these past three weeks, I have had the impression that some of you are struggling with the notion of tradition, in the light of your love of truth,” Father Ormond Rush said.Tradition “was a major point of discussion at the Second Vatican Council,” he added. “Their answers are, for us, the authority for guiding our reflections on the issues that confront us today.”He called the Oct. 4–29 assembly the delegates’ “discernment regarding the future of the Church.”Rush addressed the synod members and Pope Francis on Oct. 23 before they review a draft of a document summarizing their conversations over the past three weeks. The assembly will vote to approve the document on Saturday, shortly before it is expected to be publicly released.Speaking about discernment, the theologian told synod delegates they should strive to see with the eyes of Jesus. He also warned them of “traps” where they could be “drawn into ways of thinking that are not ‘of God.’”“These traps could lie in being anchored exclusively in the past, or exclusively in the present, or not being open to the future fullness of divine truth to which the Spirit of truth is leading the Church,” he said. “Discerning the difference between opportunities and traps is the task of all the faithful — laity, bishops, and theologians — everyone.”Rush spoke about a tension during the Second Vatican Council related to two approaches to tradition. Benedict XVI, then Father Joseph Ratzinger, was a theological consultant at Vatican II. He wrote about “a ‘static’ understanding of tradition and a ‘dynamic’ understanding,” Rush said.“The former is legalistic, propositional, and ahistorical (i.e., relevant for all times and places); the latter is personalist, sacramental, and rooted in history, and therefore to be interpreted with a historical consciousness,” the theologian described. “The former tends to focus on the past, the latter on seeing the past being realized in the present, and yet open to a future yet to be revealed.”Rush cited paragraph 8 of Dei Verbum, Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, and the apostles’ development of the tradition of the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit: “There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on.”“And [the dogmatic constitution] goes on,” he said, “to speak of three interrelated ways through which the Holy Spirit guides the development of the apostolic tradition: the work of theologians, the lived experience of the faithful, and the oversight of the magisterium. Sounds like a synodal Church, doesn’t it?”Another synod theologian, Father Dario Vitali, also has spoken to the

Delegates meet at round tables during the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 10, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Oct 23, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA). As the Synod on Synodality in Rome launches into its final week with a changed calendar, all eyes are on the anticipated “Letter to the People of God” expected on Saturday evening.The tradition of the synod writing such a letter — or producing a similar document or message to the faithful — is far from new. However, the document this year aims for a fresh twist, at least in how it is brought about: Unlike the summary document slated for approval at the end of the synod, this missive serves as a compass, pointing the way for the synodal journey.As Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, put it, if the summary is “transitional,” the letter should illustrate the desired synodal trajectory, encompassing major topics such as peace, migration, and alignment with the pope and papal magisterium, discussed vehemently in the last week of discussions.Jesuit Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod’s general relator, already outlined a “road map” for the synod’s next phase in his opening speech. Various proposals are to be gathered, though it’s unclear if new continental or other local stages will follow.The will of the general secretariat of the synod seems to be to have a solid and pervasive presence in the processes. Therefore, everything will depend on what the secretariat requests from the regional and continental bodies.This week’s agendaDiscussions will commence in the smaller circles on Oct. 23 after Mass and theological reflection. After a review and vote on the letter, a reflective break follows until Oct. 24, with the summary report commission meeting in the afternoon. On Oct. 25, the general congregation meets to review the summary report outline delivered by the general rapporteur, followed by open discourse in the afternoon and a rosary in the Vatican Gardens.Amendments to the synthesis report are deliberated on Oct. 26 in smaller circles, and the next synodal process phase is discussed in the general congregation in the afternoon. Following a break on Oct. 27, the document is reviewed in the hall on Oct. 28, morning and afternoon, prior to approval, concluding with the Te Deum.Theological deliberationsAs the synod nears conclusion, the pope’s call for confidentiality keeps debates largely internal yet lacking practical solutions to vital issues like dwindling vocations or faltering faith, even in traditionally Catholic nations. The synod on Oct. 20 hosted the second of two events at St. Peter’s Basilica, titled “Without Prejudice to the Primacy of the Chair of Peter: The Exercise of the Petrine Ministry in a Synodal Church,” exploring the balance between papal primacy and Church reform in a synodal context.Moderated by Father Dario Vitali and featuring discussions by theologians including Father Leonardo Pelonara and Father Luca Massari, the event dissected the relationship between primacy, collegiality, and potential dissent toward papal decisions. The discourse also touched on Pope Francis’ endeavor to bolster episcopal conferences and claimed