At the end of their Plenary Assembly, the Austrian Bishops’ Conference issued a press release with a particular focus on synodality. Hereby the extract.
The Synodal process – implementation on several levels
‘For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission‘ – this title of the final document of the last Synod of Bishops describes the central concerns of Pope Francis’ pontificate. The Holy Father not only released the synod document for implementation immediately after it was voted on 26 October 2024, but also stated a few weeks later that the final document is part of the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter. Finally, with the Pope’s approval, further key points for the implementation of the synod document were specified a few days ago. It is to take place within three years at the various levels of church life and culminate in an ‘ecclesial assembly’ in October 2028 in the Vatican. In this way, Pope Francis has affirmed from his sickbed, as it were, that the Church must become more synodal in order to fulfil its mission.
The Austrian bishops fully support the results of the global synodal process and welcome the guidelines for implementation that have now been issued, which are to be followed by more concrete details in a Vatican document announced for May. Against this background, the Austrian bishops have decided that further work on the synod document should be carried out by the national synod team, which has been in existence for some time, and in four areas of work.
The first field of work is concerned with strengthening synodality in the dioceses. To this end, a working group will be set up in each diocese by the respective diocesan bishop. In the second area of work, supporting measures are to be developed at national level to strengthen synodality in the dioceses. On the part of the Bishops’ Conference, the working group responsible for this at national level includes the diocesan bishop of Gurk, Josef Marketz, and the appointed auxiliary bishop of Graz, Johannes Freitag. Elisabeth Rathgeb, Caritas Director of the Diocese of Innsbruck, theologian Petra Steinmair-Pösel and experts Anna Findl-Ludescher from the Austrian Pastoral Commission, Sr Johanna Schulenburg from the religious communities and Matthias Linus Möller, Youth Officer of the Bishops’ Conference, are also involved.
The third area of work is about strengthening synodality in the Austrian Bishops’ Conference and its institutions. The working group set up for this purpose includes the Chairman of the Bishops’ Conference and his deputy, Archbishop Franz Lackner and Diocesan Bishop Manfred Scheuer, as well as Diocesan Bishop Wilhelm Krautwaschl.
They will be joined by Linz pastoral theologian Prof Klara Csiszar and Bishops’ Conference Secretary General Peter Schipka as well as Innsbruck canon law expert Prof Sabine Konrad. The fourth field of work will deal with the question of how synodality can be further developed at continental level from Austria. The composition of this working group has yet to be finalised.
A look at the contents of the synod document adopted in October shows that much of it is already being put into practice in Austria. Participatory bodies at parish and diocesan level have proved very successful. For example, over 40,000 elected members of parish councils and parish property management councils help to shape local church life on a voluntary basis.
Concrete initiatives to strengthen synodality have already taken place in the dioceses in recent months. The increasingly common method of ‘synodal dialogue in the spirit’ has proven its worth, for example in the archdiocese of Salzburg during parish visits and visitations and in the diocese of St. Pölten during the meeting weeks in the deaneries. In the diocese of Graz-Seckau, the first of several planned diocesan conferences has taken place with a representative selection of people, and in the diocese of Innsbruck there are synodal pastoral days. In the Archdiocese of Vienna, all managers are being trained on the topic of synodality, which was also the theme of the ‘Day of Councils’, a meeting of all important diocesan committees.
The Austrian Pastoral Institute (ÖPI) has compiled a handout that is highly recommended by the bishops for further work, so that all interested parties can implement and deepen the essential impulses and results of the synodal process. The Austrian bishops are convinced that synodality strengthens cooperation and opens up a spiritual space in which joint decisions can mature so that the Church can fulfil its mission – as the salt of the earth and light for the world.
The original news release can be find here (in German).