Four days of listening, intense discussions, but also tensions and confrontations. Bringing together nearly 600 Catholics – nearly 200 on site and 400 others remotely – from all over the continent, the first part of an unprecedented European assembly on the future of the Church ended Thursday, February 9 in Prague, the Czech capital.
Pending the forthcoming publication of a final document summarizing the observations made and the expectations expressed, the authors (1) of the future text which will be sent to Rome have unveiled their “final remarks”.
“We have deepened the knowledge that the Church communities of our continent have acquired through the synodal process, as well as the tensions and questions that the European Churches are facing”, they assure in the preamble, “above all, we have once again felt the pain of the wounds that mark our recent history, beginning with those that the Church has inflicted through the abuses perpetrated by people who exercised a ministry or an ecclesial office”.
With regard to the thorny subjects, such as governance, the role of women or even the reception of homosexual people, the latter being tackled in a very fractured ecclesial landscape, the authors concede that the work undertaken has not been free from “problems and difficulties”. But that he did, despite everything, allow “look the Church in Europe in the eye, with all the treasures of the two great Latin and Eastern traditions that compose it”.
“Discernment”
“Throughout the Assembly, we had the spiritual experience that it is possible to meet, listen to and dialogue from our differences and beyond the many obstacles, walls and barriers that our history puts in our way”, ensures the text, evoking the continuation of the process “in a synodal style”: “More than a methodology, we consider it a way of life of our Church. »
The editors hope that this first European assembly will not remain a “isolated experience”but will eventually become a “recurring meeting”based on “the general adoption of the synodal method” – a style that would allow “to address the themes on which our efforts must mature and intensify, (…) without being paralyzed by fear”.
Priorities for the future
The drafting committee also identifies several priorities for the next stages of the synod on synodality, which will end in Rome in October 2024. Strengthening synodality, affirming the place of women… Among the most notable, it invites in particular still at “taking into consideration the tensions surrounding the liturgy”in order to rediscover “the Eucharist as a source of communion”, and to “to renew a lively sense of mission, bridging the gap between faith and culture to bring the Gospel back to people’s hearts, finding a language capable of articulating tradition and aggiornamento, but above all walking with people rather than speaking of them or to them”.
In Prague, the main feedback from the continental session is debated behind closed doors, until Sunday February 12, by 39 presidents of the European episcopal conferences. The latter should produce another text – probably in the form of a letter or commentary – which will accompany the “final document” sent to Rome.