Co-responsibility in Mission
/B 2. Co-responsibility in Mission
How can we better share gifts and tasks in the service of the Gospel?
B 2.1 How can we walk together towards a shared awareness of the meaning and content of mission?
Question for discernment
How prepared and equipped is the Church today to proclaim the Gospel with conviction, freedom of spirit and effectiveness? How does the perspective of a synodal Church transform the understanding of mission and enable its different dimensions to be articulated? How does the experience of accomplishing mission together enrich the understanding of synodality?
Suggestions for prayer and preparatory reflection
-- The community’s liturgical life is the source of its mission. How can its renewal be sustained in a synodal way by enhancing ministries, charisms and vocations and offering spaces of welcome and belonging?
-- How can preaching, catechesis and pastoral work promote a shared awareness of the meaning and content of mission?
-- The syntheses of the Episcopal Conferences and the Continental Assemblies repeatedly call for a “preferential option” for young people and families, which recognizes them as subjects and not objects of pastoral care. How could this missionary synodal renewal of the Church take shape?
-- How can we raise awareness that professional, social, and political commitment and voluntary work are areas in which mission is exercised? How can we better accompany and support those who carry out this mission, especially in hostile and challenging environments?
-- The Church’s social doctrine is often considered the prerogative of experts and theologians and disconnected from the daily life of communities. How can we encourage its re-appropriation by the People of God as a resource for mission?
-- The digital environment now shapes the life of society. How can the Church carry out its mission more effectively in this space?
-- In many areas carrying out mission requires collaborating with a diversity of people and organizations of different inspirations, including the Faithful of other Churches and ecclesial Communities, members of other religions, and women and men of goodwill. What do we learn from “walking together” with them, and how can we better equip ourselves to do it?
B 2.2 What should be done so a synodal Church is also an ‘all ministerial’ missionary Church?Question for discernment
How can we move towards a meaningful and effective co-responsibility in the Church, in which there is a fuller realisation of the vocations, charisms and ministries of all the Baptised in a missionary key? What can we do to ensure that a more synodal Church is also an “all ministerial Church”?
Suggestions for prayer and preparatory reflection
-- How should we celebrate Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist so that they are occasions for witnessing and promoting the participation and co-responsibility of all as active subjects in the life and mission of the Church? How can we renew an understanding of ministry not limited to ordained Ministry alone?
-- How can we discern the baptismal Ministries necessary for mission in a local Church, whether instituted or not? What spaces are available for experimentation at the local level? What value should be attributed to these Ministries? Under what conditions can they be received and recognized by the entire Church?
-- What can we learn from other Churches and ecclesial Communities regarding ministeriality and ministries?
-- How can the specific contribution of those bearing different charisms and vocations be enhanced so as to best serve the harmony of community commitment and ecclesial life, especially in the local Churches? These charisms and vocations may range from individual skills and competencies, including professional ones, to the foundational inspiration of congregations and Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, movements, associations, etc.)
-- How can we create spaces and moments of effective participation in co-responsible mission with the Faithful who, for various reasons, are on the margins of community life but who, according to the logic of the Gospel, offer an irreplaceable contribution? (Here we include the elderly and those who are sick, people with disabilities, those living in poverty, people without access to formal education, etc.)?
-- Many people commit to building a just society and caring for our common home as a response to an authentic vocation and a life choice, foregoing better-paid and established secure professional alternatives. How can we recognise this commitment in ways that make clear that this is not only a personal act but an actualization of the Church’s care for the world?
B 2.3 How can the Church of our time better fulfil its mission through greater recognition and promotion of the baptismal dignity of women?
Question for discernment
What concrete steps can the Church take to renew and reform its procedures, institutional arrangements and structures to enable greater recognition and participation of women, including in governance, decision-making processes and in the taking of decisions, in a spirit of communion and with a view to mission?
Suggestions for prayer and preparatory reflection
-- Women play a major role in transmitting the faith in families, Parishes, consecrated life, associations and movements and lay institutions, and as teachers and catechists. How can we better recognise, support, and accompany their already considerable contribution? How can we enhance it in order to learn to be an increasingly synodal Church?
-- The charisms of women are already present and at work in the Church today. What can we do to discern and support them and to learn what the Spirit wants to teach us through them? -- All Continental Assemblies call for the issue of women’s participation in governance, decisionmaking, mission and ministries at all levels of the Church, to be addressed, and for this participation to be given the support of appropriate structures so that this does not remain just a general aspiration.
-- How can women be included in these areas in greater numbers and new ways?
-- How, in consecrated life, can women be better represented in the Church’s governance and decision-making processes, better protected from abuse in all ecclesial contexts, and, where relevant, more fairly remunerated for their work?
-- How can women contribute to governance, helping to promote greater accountability and transparency and strengthen trust in the Church?
-- How can we deepen reflection on women’s contribution to theological reflection and the accompaniment of communities? How can we give space and recognition to this contribution in the formal processes of discernment at every level of the Church?
-- What new ministries could be created to provide the means and opportunities for women’s effective participation in discernment and decision-making bodies? How can co-responsibility in decision-making processes be increased between lay and consecrated women and clergy in remote places and in challenging social contexts where women are frequently the main agents of pastoral care and evangelisation? The contributions received during the first phase note that tensions with the ordained Ministers arise where the dynamics of co-responsibility and shared decision-making processes are absent.
-- Most of the Continental Assemblies and the syntheses of several Episcopal Conferences call for the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate to be considered. Is it possible to envisage this, and in what way?
-- How can men and women better cooperate in pastoral ministry and exercising related responsibilities?
B 2.4 How can we properly value ordained Ministry in its relationship with baptismal Ministries in a missionary perspective?
Question for discernment
How can we promote in the Church both a culture and concrete forms of coresponsibility such that the relationship between baptismal Ministries and ordained Ministry is fruitful? If the Church is wholly ministerial, how can we understand the specific gifts of ordained Ministers within the one People of God from a missionary perspective?
Suggestions for prayer and preparatory reflection
-- How does the ministry of Priests, “consecrated to preach the Gospel, shepherd the faithful and celebrate divine worship” , relate to baptismal Ministries? How does the triple office of the ordained Ministry relate to the Church as a prophetic, priestly and royal People?
-- How can we help strengthen this unity between the Bishop and his Priests for more effective service to the People of God entrusted to the Bishop’s care?
-- The Church is enriched by the ministry of so many Priests who belong to Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. How can their ministry, characterised by the charism of the Institute to which they belong, promote a more synodal Church?
-- How is the ministry of the permanent diaconate to be understood within a missionary synodal Church?
-- What guidelines could be adopted for the reform of seminary curricula and teaching programs in colleges and schools of theology in order to promote the synodal character of the Church? How can the formation of Priests engage more closely with the life and pastoral realities of the People of God they are called to serve?
-- What paths of formation should be adopted in the Church to foster an understanding of ministeries that is not reduced to ordained Ministry but at the same time enhances it?
-- Can we discern together how a clerical mindset, whether in Clergy or Laity, inhibits the full expression of both the vocation of ordained Ministries in the Church as well as that of other members of the People of God? How can we find ways to overcome this together?
-- Can Lay people perform the role of community leaders, particularly in places where the number of ordained Ministers is very low? What implications does this have for the understanding of ordained Ministry?
-- As some continents propose, could a reflection be opened concerning the discipline on access to the Priesthood for married men, at least in some areas?
-- How can an understanding of ordained Ministry and the formation of candidates that is more rooted in the vision of the missionary synodal Church contribute to efforts to prevent the recurrence of sexual abuse and other forms of abuse?
B 2.5 How can we renew and promote the Bishop’s ministry from a missionary synodal perspective?
-- “with that spirit of co-responsibility which is the fruit and expression of the specific mysterium communionis that is the Church” (PE II,2; cf. EG 16; DV 7).
Question for discernment
How do we understand the vocation and mission of the Bishop in a synodal missionary perspective? What renewal of the vision and exercise of episcopal ministry is needed for a synodal Church characterised by co-responsibility?
Suggestions for prayer and preparatory reflection
-- Bishops in an eminent and visible way sustain the roles of Christ Himself as Teacher, Shepherd and High Priest”. What relationship does this ministry have with that of the Presbyters, “consecrated to preach the Gospel and shepherd the faithful and to celebrate divine worship” ? How does the exercise of the episcopal ministry solicit consultation, collaboration, and participation in the decision-making processes of the People of God?
-- On the basis of what criteria can a Bishop evaluate himself and be evaluated in the performance of his service in a synodal style?
-- When might a Bishop feel obliged to take a decision that differs from the considered advice offered by the consultative bodies? What would be the basis for such a decision?
-- What is the nature of the relationship between the “supernatural sense of the faith” and the Bishop’s magisterial service? How can we better understand and articulate the relationship between the synodal Church and the Bishop’s ministry? Should Bishops discern together with or separately from the other members of the People of God? Do both options (together and separately) have a place in a synodal Church?
-- How can we ensure the care and balance of the three offices (sanctifying, teaching, governing) in the life and ministry of the Bishop? To what extent do current models of episcopal life and ministry enable the Bishop to be a person of prayer, a teacher of the faith, and a wise and effective administrator, and keep the three roles in creative and missionary tension?
-- How can the profile of the Bishop and the discernment process be revised to identify candidates in a synodal perspective? How should the role of the Bishop of Rome and the exercise of his primacy evolve in a synodal Church?
