 I understood we will use the English language today, so Monsieur Le Douaillat, it's so good to be here because Miriam and I were in contact already for a few times, but in that famous online period that we luckily enough can leave behind us, although it still helps us a lot to be a university that can reach out. So very much appreciated that you accepted the invitation to be with us to speak about this highly important topic process I would say. As a Christmas present I got from my friends from the School of Catholic Theology this book. I be honest I did not have the time to read it entirely, but I read some historical chapters and there I read that you know it's not new in a way that we discuss this kind of processes in the rich history of our church. Many similar movements of course in that time with some particular characteristics have already passed, but of course every age every time demands its own approach. I'm not an architect. I'm a simply political scientist. The only thing I would say that perhaps where you say the essence of this process is enlarge the space of your tent that you can never do that without also discussing the construction of it. So I'm really really curious what this process means. I know that our colleague Monique Roogtenboer who was in Prague and I followed via the media your contributions there and I'm so happy to see that our school is actively involved in this process because I think that this kind of difficult but very important process is demand the active presence of scholars of research of science and that's exactly why we are so proud to have within this university our Catholic School for Catholic Theology. That is not about not only about the topics we know but also especially about this one. What can theology say to us? How can research inform this kind of processes? That's again one reason why we're so happy Miriam that you are tomorrow with us. So I give back the floor to the president of this meeting and I'm with you listening carefully to what she will have to say to us. Thank you so much for being with us this morning. Welcome again. It's wonderful for me to be here this morning and if I may say so it's wonderful in a way to be back. I have very good memories of the time that I was employed at what was then called the Theologian Faculty at Tilburg between 1998 and 2005. It is good to see so many familiar faces. I'm grateful for the opportunity offered to share some thoughts about the current Synod on Synodality as it is commonly referred to. It's a great project that the churches undertaken and people around the world are motivated to participate. It is as if we are awaking from hibernation. So it is good to reflect theologically and canonically a McKenna lawyer on what is actually happening. Today I will predominantly speak about the continental meetings in plural that have just taken place. I would like to make one small comment. Although I am a consultant of the Synod, this is an official appointment by the Pope to the institution of Synod and a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Synod Worldwide, I am not speaking on behalf of the Synod or the Secretariat of the Synod. I did participate in the drafting of the document for the continental stage, so the document that was written in Frascati and I was also participating in the drafting of the document in Prague. But today I present my thoughts as an academic and the content of my lecture entails only information that is publicly accessible. Enlarge the space of your tent. With this biblical metaphor, the document for the continental stage offers lenses for understanding and appreciating the experience of the first process in the listening phase of the 2021-2024 Synod. After the dioceses around the world had engaged in listening, had summarized their findings, which were the foundation of the reports by the Episcopal conferences that were submitted to the Secretariat for the Synod last fall, the drafting team chose this image of the tent because it seems to capture so well what people around the world are longing for. A listening and welcoming church in which all, yes, all find a place in which God and neighbor are met and in which all have something to contribute. Today the church dispersed all over the world is closing a two-month period of being united in listening to and reflecting about what the spirit has to say to the churches. And the church has done so in seven continental gatherings. After the listening in the dioceses and Episcopal conferences, the current consultation was the second process of the listening phase of the Synod and had a purpose to assist in preparing for the fundamental stage of the meeting of the 16th Ordinary Assembly of Bishops, which will take place in Rome in October 2023. The listening phase and the meeting of the bishops are two stages in the Synod, which indeed is not just referred to anymore as Synod of Bishops, but it is now simply called Synod. The intention of the process so far is to facilitate a dialogue between the church's local, continental and universal. The hope is to develop a synodal dynamic characterized by a circularity both between the different levels as well as between the pastors and the other members of the people of God. The synod is therefore not just a synod of bishops, rather it is simply called a synod since it is not only Episcopal, but also ecclesial. This is now a new word that has been introduced. It's an ecclesial meeting because it involves the whole people of God. The Ordinary General Assembly of Bishops, scheduled for 2023 and 2024, will therefore be as Cardinal Mario Gregg, who is the Secretary General of the Synod in Rome, said that will be a journey within the journey so as to enable a more mature reflection for the well-being of the whole church. In my presentation today I will mainly focus on where we are at in the Synod, in particular with regard to the continental meetings. At times I will offer short theological reflections and I will end with a theological and canonical outlook. So let's look at the document of the continental stage and where that document stands in the larger process. Where is the church in the synodal process and what is actually happening in that process? So in October 2021 Pope Francis solemnly opened the worldwide synod with the team for a synodal church, communion, participation, mission. A week later the bishops opened the synod in their respective dioceses. All the faithful were invited to participate in the synod, in particular through their dioceses and to respond to the question, what is the spirit saying to the church about herself? The fact that all faithful were invited in this way was a noven in the history of the synod of bishops. In order for all faithful to participate, the dioceses organized and facilitated discernment sessions and submitted their findings to the Episcopal Conference or equivalent structures of the Eastern churches. The Episcopal Conference is in turn discerned what the spirit had been saying to the churches and submitted this in a report to the Secretariat of the Synod by August 15, 2022. It was a great surprise for us in Rome and actually for everybody probably that from the 114 Episcopal Conferences that we have in the world, 112 respondent. Just to give you an indication for the synod on the family and the synod on the youth, this was between 70 and 80 Episcopal Conferences, although both subjects touched everybody. So 112 out of 114, 15 from the 23 Eastern churches respondent and not only that, the Secretariat in Rome also received reports from 17 out of 23 Dicastries. This was something new that the Dicastries were invited and some of them had organized spiritual days went out for a walk as a whole Dicastry to discern the subject. From the International Union of Male and Female Superiors, from associations and movements, from the platform Digital Synod, which was organized by the Dicastry for Communication. And finally, probably thousands of submissions came from the faithful directly. Sometimes these lateral submissions voiced the view of an individual. At other times, they came from groups with up to thousands of persons. In the fall of 2022, a group of 20 persons from all over the world, and with different ecclesial backgrounds and expertise, together with the leadership of the Secretariat of the Synod and the Coordinating Committee, analyzed these submissions. Before meeting, every report was studied in a prayerful way by three persons independent from each other. These persons had very different backgrounds and expertise. So, for example, a report might have been submitted in French, just give one example. And this document might have been read by a sister who is a professor of philosophy in Burkina Faso, but who studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris, which she did a doctorate, as well as by a laywoman who is the Secretary-General of the Council of Churches in the Middle East and maybe by a priest from Quebec. So you had three very different people, and these three people would not remain the same constellation. So I also read French documents. So we had a continuous change of different makeup of people. And we put it all in a short summary. What is the main idea in this? What is really presented in this? And then we were invited to select remarkable phrases that we used later as quotations. The whole group met for almost two weeks in a house run by religious in Frascati, a town outside of Rome, to listen and to discern together what the spirit is saying to the churches and to express this in what became the document for the continental stages. Although the task was neither to undertake a sociological study or present a theological or magisterial document, nevertheless the document is, and I quote, loaded with the exquisitely theological treasure contained in the experience of listening to the voice of the spirit and acted by the people of God, allowing its senses to emerge. And of course, the process in Frascati was conducted in an atmosphere of prayer, silence and discernment and frames by which liturgies in which the culture and peculiarities of each continent could be experienced. The pope was continuously informed about the works of people were driving back and forth to the Vatican to inform the Holy Father. And upon endorsement by the Council of Bishops, that's a group of 15 bishops, each continent three who have been selected by the previous synods to guide and to advise the current synodal process. This group also came to Frascati and they were in agreement with the document and so the document was published. Before I speak about the next step in the process, allow me to say a few words about the Frascati experience and the document itself. The document expresses that it can affirm with enthusiasm, the synod is on, that's the opening phrase, the synod is on. And the enthusiasm, as they say, you know, we express this with enthusiasm, exists for three reasons. First, as I already mentioned, overwhelming response to the invitation to participate. In particular, the 112 of the 114 Episcopal conferences and of the Eastern churches. This response is remarkable, also considering wars, natural disasters and COVID, as well as the challenges posed by the sexual abuse crisis. Second, the reaction to the synodal process, virtually all faithful express a deep felt gratitude that someone finally asked, what do you believe? There is gratitude that somebody finally listened. People express their joy in experiencing a deep sharing in one listening to the word of God together, to what it means to be a synodal church, which they say is not any longer a mere theoretical concept, and therefore they express a true longing for deepening and expanding this experience. This is across all the reports you hear this time and again. That does not mean that reports do not convey that some are skeptical or reject the synodal process. This, so the report, is particularly the case with some priests, and that is quite a concern for all of us involved. The content of the report submitted reveal that's the third reason for the enthusiasm, an overwhelming convergence despite the different context from which they emerged. The Frascati group experienced this as an action of the Holy Spirit. You can imagine we all traveled there, being afraid that one part of the world wants to go in this direction and another in another direction. But that was not the case. This does not mean that there are no tensions in the reports, but they concern the same or similar issues in the worldwide church. In writing the document for the continental states, the intention was to hold to hold these tensions and not to resolve them prematurely, also because that was not the task of the Frascati group. In a similar way, that was not the task of the meeting in Prague. There's no answer to the question. We hold the tension. Rather these tensions need to be reflected upon in a synodal way. So not just a small group in Frascati. Due to the time, I am not able to present you the content of the document for the continental states, but I invite you to read it. But I do want to make one comment because it is so unique for a document coming from the Vatican. Since the document was written for the listening phase, it lets the people of God speak for themselves. By using direct quotations originating from the reports, submits the treasure of experiences of people from all parts of the world comes to the fore. The quotations are not meant to support certain positions or express geographically diversity, although there is a certain balance between different continents. But they express in a particularly powerful, apt or even precise way experiences that can be found in very many reports. In the continental phase, the quotations should enable the people to sense the richness of the worldwide experience of fate and counter one another and enter into dialogue with one another. Some of the reports coming from the continental meetings will use the same method of inserting quotations. They will provide the church with the flavor of the richness of the fate in each continent. If you have not read the document for the continental stage, please do so and you will be surprised. You can find it on www.cennet.vaui, so VA Vatican for the Vatican. An ecclesiological reflection before I go on. The document is written for consultation on the continental level. Yet it was first sent again to the local churches. This document too was first sent again to the local churches for another round of consultation with the people of God, a participation of the Episcopal conferences and from there onwards the listening on the continental level was to occur. Cardinal Gregg uses the word restituzio for this process. Giving back to the people what we heard so that they can verify it and thus own it. The method implies asking the question, did we hear what you said? On an ecclesiological level we can say there is a circularity between the local and the universal. Whereas in the past Rome would inform the local churches of decisions made. Now there is an interaction, a circularity between the local and the universal. The doctrine of Vatican II that the church exists in and from the local churches finds here an application. But there is more to it. Also the meaning of catholicity as expressed in Lumen Gentium 13 unfolds. And in Lumen Gentium 13 it says in virtue of this catholicity each individual part contributes through its special gifts to the good of the other parts and of the whole church. Through the common sharing of gifts and through the common effort to attain fullness and unity the whole and each of the parts increase their richness. Hence the continental phase enables a sharing of gifts. This is actually what happened at Vatican II. When the different local churches brought their insights and experiences. They were discerned by the council and if judged as contributing to the edification of the church they were received. And yet the current process goes a step further because the gifts of the churches are not only shared between the local and the universal as if it was a higher and lower level but in the continental phase also with the neighboring churches. Furthermore the secularity involves here a process between bishops and I always say bishops and other members of the faithful. Not bishops and members of the faithful bishops and other members of the people of God. It gives expression to the sense of the faithful and the unique responsibility of the bishops. In this some context something else is remarkable. About a year ago the secretariat of the Synod asked the Episcopal conferences whether they wanted to have a consultation in the continent just as bishops among themselves or with a participation of these other members of the faithful. The majority of the Episcopal conferences respondents first of all they were surprised that they were asked because this was not a practice of the Holy Sea to ask a conference what would you like what would you prefer. So some were so confused that they didn't even I think answer but those who answered the overwhelming majority said of course we want to meet with the people of God. So the secretariat asked them because it wants to make to create and increase this awareness of what it means to listen and to be a Synodal Church. It has to take place at all levels. So we were surprised that there was this majority. Hence the continental meetings are now ecclesial meetings and not merely Episcopal meetings. As a consequence the organizers of the meetings have to ensure that these gatherings adequately represent the variety of the people of God. They should include women, young persons and marginalized people. People of other Christian and religious traditions as well as people of no faith were to be invited. Probably in order to hold the tension between the people of God and the bishop so to speak the document invites bishops to meet, invite that's the word, to meet at the end of the assembly to collegially reread the lift Synodal experience from the perspective of their specific charism and role. In particularly they are asked to identify appropriate ways to carry out their task of validating and approving the final document ensuring that it is the fruit of an authentically Synodal journey respectful of the process that has taken place and faithful to the diverse voices of the people of God in each continent. It might be helpful to keep this expansion from Episcopal to ecclesial in mind as we are going to listen to how the continental meetings unfolded in the past two months. So the meetings in the continents what is the task for the meetings in the different continents. The meetings are to respond to three questions first when you read the document which intuitions resonate most strongly with the experience and reality of your continent. What is new and what is illuminating. Second having read and prayed with the document with substantial tensions and challenges emerge. As a consequence what are the questions or issues to be addressed in the next step of the process. And third looking to the previous two responses what are the priorities. Recurring teams and calls for action to be shared with other local churches and to be discussed at the October 23 session of the Synodal Assembly. From a methodological point of view the method of spiritual conversation was recommended which is a method by which everybody can speak by which there is no judgment about what people are saying but there's a true and deep listening. Otherwise there were no instructions from the Roman side and that was new. It has been left to each continent to find the best way possible to fulfill the task assigned. So it is a way of respecting different traditions, cultures, possibilities and challenges. It's also one way of implementing a healthy decentralization. But the church is not used to this. So how then does the continental phase unfold? First although there are five continents, this is what we all learned in school, there were seven continental meetings. The reason for that is quite simple. North and South America decided to meet separately and the Middle East with numerous Eastern churches had its own meeting and could not just be packed with Asia. The seven meetings kicked off with Europe and Oceania in early February and these were followed by the Middle East, by North America and then we had Asia, Africa and South America just closed its meeting last weekend. I will present some background information about four of these seven meetings. Regretfully I cannot say anything about the content of their reports because they have not been published yet, but the exception I think of Asia, you can find that already on the internet. They're all invited to submit their reports today. It's only 11 o'clock or 11 30 and in some continents it's only three o'clock in the morning. So they still have some time. Yet we must remember the Synod is not only about being a Synodal Church in the future, it's one in which the church is invited to practice already being a Synodal Church and to reflect about that experience at the same time. So I think your comment earlier about the theologians is very important because I think the theologians should accompany the process by reflecting of what is actually happening here and to deepen that theological knowledge. So everybody is to learn and not only as we are also used to the theologians retelling the rest of the world how to run the show. So that too I think in a few weeks there is a conference at the Gregorian University about doing theology in a Synodal Church. What does all of this mean for us theologians and cannabarists? Yes I will be one of the speakers about cannabarists. So the way the Continental Meetings in Fort says something on how Synodality is understood and can be experienced. Therefore it is worthwhile to attend to logistics, participants, etc. First of all those continents that have a functioning continental structure for the cooperation of Episcopal conferences such as the Salem which is the meeting of bishops of South America, the FABC which is the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, the CCEE which is the Council of Bishops of Europe, do use these structures to facilitate the current meetings. As I already mentioned the Episcopal conferences themselves favor that the continental meetings should not just be Episcopal and therefore all continents were invited to hold meetings in which a representation of the faithful would participate. These gatherings are referred to and I don't get tired of saying this as ecclesial meetings. Yet preserving the unique task of the bishops in the church, the document as I said invites the bishops to validate the results ensuring that it is the fruit of an authentically synodal journey respectful of the process that has taken place and faithful to the voices of the people of God in each continent. So Oceania was the first one to kick off. When you speak to the people in Oceania the first thing they tell you is we are basically consisting of water. We are just water and we have two big islands or three countries and the rest is all small islands in many countries. Oceania consists of four Episcopal conferences comprised of 21 countries from small island states to large land masses Australia. Together they make up 72 jurisdictions most of them are dioceses. There are also eastern Catholic churches composed of five aparchees of different churches as well as eastern Christians who do not have their own bishop in their territory. Hence the Episcopal conferences and eastern churches make up for five entities which together hold 77 let's say dioceses. 77 only. Very different from other continents. There is a great variety of ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups. Oceania had to meet with two challenges. First the whole process had to occur in the middle of summer holidays. Everybody was on the beach. So parish and diocesan life like in our part of the world is very quiet when we have summer holidays. June, July, nothing July August nothing happens in all and this was the same in Australia. Second the Federation of Catholic bishops conferences in Oceania had not met for a number of years and their meeting had already been scheduled so the two events somehow needed to connect and to interfere. Another thing that I became aware of for many of these continental meetings in order to meet people needed visas. You cannot just go from Solomon Islands to Australia. You need a visa and you need to ask for that quite some time before. Each of the five entities were invited to discern in a prayerful way the questions mentioned for the continental states and submit their findings to a discernment and writing team created by this federal structure that they have in Oceania. So they decided to to ask every conference to do it and not to meet directly in person. The meeting and they submitted their reports. These five groups, these five entities and then you had this writing team which was composed of three persons per entity. The chair of the Oceania Task Force which is a woman, a facilitator, a writing coordinator and a coordinator of the Federation of Bishops Conferences of Oceania. The group numbered 20 persons in total. Very much in the style of the Frascati meeting they met in Melbourne in a retreat-like mode for a number of days to draft a response. This draft was submitted to the meeting of the bishops of Oceania in Sufa, the capital of Fiji. And I heard two days ago that they not only prayed but they also met in the swimming pool. So I thought it's a different view again to see and to hear the bishops speak about how they met in the swimming pool to discuss the progress of. Yeah. It is composed of the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences and a few members of the Task Force joined the meeting. The conference, the FCEBCO, made some comments to the draft report but apparently they did not change the report itself. I'm not sure who actually owns the document of the Continental Meeting of the Church of Oceania. The working language throughout the whole process was for everyone English, so they had only one language. The Continental Meeting shows that the ecclesial part took mainly place within the Episcopal Conferences as well as in the writing team. The coordinator of the whole project was a woman and it looks like the meeting in Sufa itself was not really ecclesial. It was more Episcopal. Europe. Europe reveals you already saw some beautiful pictures. Thank you so much for that. Europe reveals a very different picture. The continent is composed of 39 Episcopal Conferences and covers 45 countries. It has most likely a similar number of languages. Europe feels not only the past history of a wall which divided Eastern and Western Europe with its communist regime. Currently the war in the Ukraine has a major impact and had a major impact on the whole continent. It should be noted that there was a participation of Ukrainians as well as Russians in the meeting. So everybody was there. The Council of Episcopal Conferences of Bishops of Europe invited each conference to send four delegates. These were the presidents of the conferences and three other persons. They numbered. Not everybody was able to send three people. Also some people suddenly had corona so could not come. So the 39 conferences sent 140 persons. And there were 42 other participants coming from movements, associations, organizations. So you had for example Fokollare, Communion Liberazione, Justizia at PAX, different organizations, 42 participants. So a total of 182 people met physically in Prague. You did not hear this this morning but it was in Hotel Pyramid. So we talked about more senators in Hotel Pyramid. But we had the meeting on the main floor so that was a good thing. The Episcopal Conferences were also invited to send each maximum of 10 delegates to participate online in the meeting. And again not all Episcopal Conferences were able to send 10 people so instead of 390, 269 people participated. In total Europe this had 409 participants. Very unique was that the contemplative religious participated by praying for and with the meeting throughout Europe. The drafting team was not composed of delegates so they had no double role and could truly listen. It was composed of two women, two priests and two laymen. Among the six of us we had five different nationalities but within our biographies we covered several countries. So I've been suddenly continued again as Dutch and German. My colleague from Austria is Romanian and Austrian so there is a mixture of in our biographies of different countries. The meeting at Prague consisted of two sessions from Sunday evening till Thursday lunchtime. The ecclesial meeting consisted of men and women, bishops, priests, religious and lay persons and on the following Friday and Saturday the president of the conferences met among themselves only. The ecclesial meeting opened and you saw it with the celebration of the Eucharist and the working session with the spiritual reflection by the secretly ordained in the communist time Czech priests and professor of sociology and philosophy of religion Thomas Halik. Each Episcopal conference was invited to present their response to the three questions in a six-minute address to be held by maximum two persons. In most cases this was the president of the conference and a woman. Actually what was interesting from my perspective some conferences were able to send to us the drafting team one PDF file and others sent one by the bishop and one by the other person. So whatever that means. In most cases this was, yeah, there were 13 interventions with prayerful interruptions after four addresses. All went into working groups to discern deeper one of the three questions. Those who participated online did the same. The results were reported back in plenary. The sessions were presided over by bishops, priests, a layman and a laywoman was actually the secretary, the woman was the secretary general of the German Episcopal Conference. A major challenge posed indeed for all of us the five languages in which we worked and they were used simultaneously English, French, German, Italian and Polish. Yet despite this multitude of languages most participants nevertheless had to participate in a foreign language. So the Dutch normally work in Dutch, they don't work in English and Hungarians work in Hungarian. So we have to remember that people still have an additional barrier. Generally the delegates of each Episcopal Conference were divided over different groups so that the diversity of Europe could be experienced within their group. The drafting team was able to read all five languages. Among the six of us we were able to read all these five languages, but we worked in English and just translated everything when necessary. We had a total of 120 documents because of all the reports. They came in Polish and in whatever language. So when we arrived there was no staff for us. We discovered that so I was happy that my assistant, so here we are university professors, we activated two of our doctoral students to help us with the translations which they could do remotely and they worked really day and night as well, although they had not been given a warning before. After three days it works and we worked for a whole night. We were able to present a 20-page report with numerous quotations from the different reports and interventions. The document concluded with recommendations for the October 2023 meeting. The draft was read out by a native speaker, one of the delegates in English, while the translators did their work. There was an overwhelming support for the draft. The session closed with a possibility to comment, to give comments to the draft and so we received indeed about 80 comments which we then discussed together. The European, the drafting team was then commissioned to do the final editing of the document. The European meeting was characterized by a desire to have as many people participate in one way or the other and to be transparent because transparency will contribute to trust in the process. Hence all plenary sessions from the beginning till the end were live streamed and I think this was the only continent who did this. And you can still watch all of that. You can sit through that on YouTube. Everything is available. The CCEE had scheduled a two-day meeting of the president of the conferences in order to write a commentary to the document. The bishops were very insisting that they wanted to have the special meeting and that they could write a comment. As it turned out, a declaration in which support for the draft was expressed was published. Analyzing the European meeting, one sees that delicous means here, bishops and other members of the faithful, unlike Oceania, Europe had no submission from the Episcopal Conference before the meeting, but they were given during the meeting so that all could hear it authentically. The drafting team therefore only drafted as the Synodal Journey occurred. It was quite different from Australians who had a meeting with 20 people in Melbourne to do the drafting over a whole week. The bishops had a meeting by themselves after the ecclesial gathering. Okay, so that's Europe. The Middle East. Again, it's very different from Oceania and Europe. It's characterized by numerous Eastern churches in full communion with the Sea of Rome. This region, too, is facing serious problems with regard to peace. During its meeting, the earthquake and Turkey and Syria occurred. Those gathered in Beirut interrupted the meeting for prayer, but the press release states, since we are children of the resurrection, we continued our meeting. The meeting took place in the vicinity of Beirut, where the patriarchs of the different churches gathered together with the representation of other members of the people of God from the countries from the Middle East, including Egypt. There were 115 persons. The preparation for the meeting entails two different invitations. Each of the seven Eastern churches is Copts, Chaldean, Melchites, Maronites, Syrian, Armenian and the Latin Church of Jerusalem. Each one of them was invited to discern about the three questions irrespective of the country in which their faithful live. All of these submissions can be found on the internets, and if you can read Arabic, you can even read them, because they're not in English. They're only in Arab. At the same time in each country, the different churches in that country were invited to discern together the three questions. So they had two levels of input. The idea behind this process, I was told by a colleague of mine, was to initiate already a continuous journey beyond the continental meeting. Hence the continental meeting enjoyed a double input. When the meeting began, the drafting team there took up his work. Having listened to the different voices for three days, the team presented a rough outline of a report. And it was all the time in Arab and English. It was discussed by the participants, and the more detailed draft of the report was two days later agreed upon by all present. There was also, like in Europe, no formal voting, but all expressed agreement. And I think that, too, from faculties like political sciences, they should think about what does that mean? What kind of discernment processes do we have? What models of decision making do we have? And what is reflected behind that? You know, why do we ask for some two-dive majority? What does consensus really mean? What does unanimity mean? So there could be a participation of other faculties and universities. Upon finalizing the text, the patriarchs asked to read the report before it will be submitted to Rome. Apparently, the patriarchs were deeply touched by the enthusiasm they experienced among the people of God being in a synodal church. As someone said, they enjoyed experiencing a living church. This was very encouraging to them. So we can say the Middle East had an ecclesial meeting, North America. The continental meeting could not fall back on an already juridically existing structure of cooperation of Episcopal conferences, because North America has no cooperating structure. And it involved only two countries, the United States and Canada. Mexico was back and forth. Where shall we go? And ultimately, they decided to go with South America. I think the Canadians regretted that a little bit because now Canada was a smaller country vis-a-vis the large USA. The North American continent meeting concerns 267 dioceses. And eparchies together, 72 of them are in Canada. And from these 267 dioceses, 88 participated. 88% participated, 236. Each diocese was invited to send three to five delegates, resulting in 931 participating delegates. Also, every North American bishop was invited to participate. 267 dioceses, 146 bishops participated. But 267 dioceses means many more bishops because we also have, of course, auxiliary bishops. So 146 of the 267 dioceses bishops participated. Remarkably, the bishops did not fall in the category of delegates, so that the 140 bishops together with the 931 delegates made up 1177 participants. The North Americans did not meet in person, but rather organized 12 virtual meetings. Seven in English, three in Spanish, and two in French. Virtual meetings, it was argued, would allow for a lot of participation, both of delegates and bishops, and would cost less. Indeed, United States of North, United States in particular, very quickly said there was regretfully no money available for a meeting in person. The delegates were mixed in different groups to reflect the diversity around the continent, but apparently there was no simultaneous translation in these meetings so that the groups in a way remained within their own language culture. With regard to the diversity in the groups, the bishops, arts bishops, did not participate in the meetings with the delegates. The bishops met only among themselves, and they were encouraged, the bishops got a letter and they were encouraged to attend a virtual assembly offered for them of their choosing. I recently had a lecture in Canada, one of the French speaking bishops was on the podium with me, and he said that he had been a bit surprised that he basically met with other bishops of Quebec, but that was due to the language because it was in French. So the sessions of the bishops also did not offer simultaneous translation either. It's important to know that these meetings are not bishops in one group and the laity in another, rather the bishops are in one group and the other members of the faithful, priests, religious, lay persons are in another group. Hence the division is not clergy laity, but bishop and non-bishop. This implied as well that although the synod is still in the listening phase, the bishops and the other faithful in North America could neither listen together nor to each other as to what the spirit is saying to the churches. I think it's important to take note of this precisely because of the experience of the bishops in Europe as well as the Middle East. So how did the participants prepare for the sessions? All delegates received the relevant materials and the dioceses were encouraged to engage in local listening around the document for the continental stage. The contributions of which delegates were invited to bring to the virtual continental assembly. They were invited in listening circles so you had 150 people in one Zoom meeting and they were then set up into different groups but the whole session was only something like three hours with a break in between. So it's very different from three and a half days meeting in Prague or in Asia or I would even think in the Vici Islands in the sunshine. So the minutes were taken and collected and then in February there was a meeting of the writing team in Florida. They did meet in person and that consisted of 18 members, seven of them from Canada to bishops, to priests, to laywoman, assistant and layman and the U.S. statement says about the whole group eight bishops, two priests, two laymen and two women religious at total of 16 persons. They met in the retreat setting of prayer and discernment and it will also finish this week its report. Whereas all the other continents have created a special website for the event. The U.S. and Canada use the website of the United States bishops conference and Canada if you go on their conference you basically get a link to the American bishops conference. The information on the internet does not indicate who owns the document in the end. It would seem that there is no separate meetings of bishops of North America in relation to this document. I would love to dive into Asia but I don't really have time for that. Just a few things. Asia, they met in Bangkok, 91 delegates representing the people of God from 17 Episcopal conferences and two synods of bishops coming from the 29 countries that constitute the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences. Yeah, the Asian meeting was partially accessible through live streaming. The document draft was prepared in advance but they discussed it and if you look to the pictures in Prague we had rows like you sit here but in Asia they had kind of round tables and they were sitting all the time in round tables. So it would also be interesting to see what that did with the people, the different setup in the room. A theological and canonical outlook. The time is short but by way of conclusion I like to make a few theological and canonical remarks. So what stands out? The whole synodal process is deeply rooted in the Doctrine of Vatican II. At the 2016 Convention of the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand I spoke about Pope Francis hitting a reset button and that phrase has somehow made it into the literature. Hitting a reset button with regard to Vatican II. When you do a reset on your computer the system reboots and reconfigures the different programs and files. Yet it does not add or leave out anything that was not there before. Resetting is done to optimize the working of the computer. The purpose is to facilitate the use of the computer. When Pope Francis hit the reset button he offered the church new lenses to understand the practice the Doctrine of Vatican II to understand and practice the Doctrine of Vatican II in such a way that it is faithful to the council's intention and that it contributes to the communion, participation and mission of the church. Whereas Vatican II had left the church with juxtapositions it's a word that the German Theologian Hermann Joss Potmeier introduced and that was very well received by our wonderful colleague Henk Witter who in our research group we have an international research group in which Henk has participated for many, many years and he has made great contributions in reflecting about what juxtapositions really mean. So Vatican II had juxtapositions to doctrine standing side by side without a new synthesis. The older and the newer theologies you can find both of them there. The Pope provided lenses to reinterpret all of that when he said it is precisely this part of Synodality which God expects of the church of the Third Millennium and he did that when he spoke about and introduced the notion of Synodality. Vatican II addressed not only the role of the bishops in relation to the papacy by offering the doctrine on collegiality which is in particular to be found in chapter three of Lumen Gentian it also very consciously inserted before the chapter on the hierarchy the chapter on the people of God to underscore that the church is the people of God in which all share in the threefold ministry of Christ and in which all enjoy a true equality and dignity. It's only after the commonalities are taught that the chapters on hierarchy, laity and religious are presented. In this way it is possible to understand the hierarchy as standing in relation to and in service of the people of God and its mission. Vatican II uses neither the words collegiality nor Synodality. Many think that collegiality appears in the council but that's not true as it really has become a household work. Yet it came about to express that relationship between bishops and the Pope between collegiality and primacy in a similar way in recent times the word Synodality has been introduced to give expression to the relationship of people of God bishops and Pope. By taking doctrine that finds expression in chapter two of Lumen Gentian as lenses for interpreting chapter three on the hierarchy we can see that Synodality offers some lenses for understanding collegiality and primacy. None of these three notions or realities can exist or make sense without the other. They are complementary. The Synod on Synodality is to assist the church in experiencing and understanding this. The Synod offers a learning by doing in which we must listen to the spirit. Yes, besides the Christological the Pneumatological dimension is also introduced and so we have to listen to the spirit and to each other. A comment with regard to Canon Law. On January 25, 2023 so just about two months ago it was 40 years since the Code of Canon Law was promulgated. In the Constitution for the promulgation Pope John Paul II mentioned old and new doctrines that stood side by side in Vatican II. He called for the newness of the council to be the newness of the code and listed five four points marking this newness. They are the church as people of God and hierarchical authority as service. This was the sequence he mentioned. The church as communion which spells out mutual relationships between the particular and universal church and between collegiality and primacy. Third, the teaching that all members of the people of God share in the threefold ministry of Christ to which is related the duties and rights of Christ faithful and finally he mentions the commitment to actualism. Pope John Paul II called for these four lenses to govern the interpretation and application of the law. When studying them carefully, they can be captured in one word, synodality. Would it not be fascinating if all who applied the law would use these lenses? In 1959, just 40 years after the promulgation of the 1917 code, Pope John XXIII announced in one breath both Vatican II and the revision of the 1917 code. It took 17 years after the closing of Vatican II before the new law came into force. Can we wait that long this time? So what can be the remedy in the meantime? Well, maybe we can listen and learn from those who applied the law between 1965 and 1983 because they had a new doctrine but they had a code of 1917. Despite the fact that the existing law was based on a different theology, the canon lawyers were able to assist the faith community in receiving Vatican II. It requires to attribute to the men's legislator the mind of the legislator which is a criterion for interpreting the law a mere historical relevance so that development does not only occur in doctrine but also in and through legislation. And this is something that we are not used to. We tend to look back to the law as if 1983 is the final point of reverence. In this way, the law by doing that by taking up the new doctrine and using the old law, in this way, the law did not obstruct or hamper the community from living in agreement with its new understanding. Indeed, the law has a servant, a facilitating role also in becoming a more synodal church. Therefore, enlarge the space of your tent not only by welcoming people because we want to be a welcoming church but also by opening new horizons for interpretation. I thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Professor Wylens, for this broad and close observations of the synodal process of the testimony about it, I would say, and the deep reflection in the end from a theological and canonical perspective. I had the idea, came in my mind to invite you once more after this process on the next stage, what we will see. It will be, it's really a tension in this process and a big movement is going on, we see. Thank you very much for that. Now it's, we have some time, another 20 minutes for asking questions of understanding or the contributions but questions to the beautiful lecture, deep lecture of Professor Wylens, who wants to start? There's some question in mind, Eric. Yes, thank you very much. I was very struck by your last remarks on the way that the church should understand the synodal process as a way of going forward. But first I would say, do you, I would ask you the question but it's a little bit of rhetorical question. Do you think that all the people involved do share your idea of this understanding of synodality? That is a way, that's a lens of moving forward. That's, I think, a very particular interpretation. I like it, but do you think that it is a very common one? And then the next one is, of course, how do we deal with the fact that this exactly puts the light on a problem, which is there, I think, since Vatican II, the problem of authority, that of course ultimately not everything that is said is the Holy Spirit. But who decides that the Holy Spirit is? Now we only have authority as a tool to do that. That's not how it should be but then, of course, we have a problem of solving the question, who on how should we decide what the Holy Spirit is doing? So, but first, do you think that moving forward in the way you propose is something that is generally shared? Thank you. When I arrived this morning at your campus, there was something new that last time I was here, I think was not here. And it says everywhere this is a non-smoking campus. And I like to give the example of the smoking, non-smoking. So when in 1986, I moved to Canada and I came from the University of Nijmegen. We had, there was in the Netherlands, no smoking, non-smoking restaurants. There were no smoking, non-smoking facilities at the university. Everybody was simply smoking their cigars. I still remember those, yeah, those meetings. But in Ottawa, they already had this. So I remember we were 90 people in the classroom and I only got to know half of them because that was the half that was non-smoking. And the other half met in the coffee breaks in another room. And I thought, I think it's really interesting and fascinating to ask yourself the question, how was it possible that in such a short time, although the tobacco industry, the restaurants, the horeca, everybody was saying, oh, we can never change this, how was it possible? I think that's for sociologists to discover that, that the whole world has implemented this in such a short time. So I think if we don't begin to walk, so those who believed in it and from what I understood from sociologists, you need a critical mass to change the, and then you get to naming, shaming through naming policies of soft laws, so all of that. And we see this now already with bishops. Bishops who don't participate, they are being asked, so what did you do? And so there's not a question, did you do something, but what did you do? So the question is already moved. And for bishops then to say, oh, I'm not participating in this, or I don't think synodality is the right word or the right terminology. So I think things are already beginning. A second thing that I find a found, rather inspiring is Mother Teresa was asked, and you know how tiny she was. Do you think you can change the world? And she said, no, I don't think I can change the world with my whole organization, but I can change where I am. And then she said to the journalist, now if you join me, that makes two of us. And I think you're married, right? Yes, so if your wife also joins with them, you're the three. And then she said, and you're three children, that makes us already six. So the overwhelming response by the people around the world, the overwhelming respect, the fact that the room is full and that I heard before that people wanted to come in, but somehow there is no space. So maybe we also, as to your lotions, I just had the same experience in Canada. I gave a lecture there, and I was totally surprised that 500 people signed up. From around the world, it was an online event, but they said we had not anticipated that. What does that tell us, as the lotions, that we do not, or insufficiently, hear or are aware of the hunger of the people? And how should that influence our way of doing theology? So I think that is one thing we have to look into this process. Second, I also think from what I heard, by the way, in the past weeks, where South America is the furthest developing all of this, because they have this long tradition with Salem to have these kind of conversations. So in Asia, the bishops from Asia have decided to participate in meetings of the Salem to learn how to do it, and they are catching up very quickly. The Africans, the United States have no money for our meeting in person. The Africans have three meetings. I mean, the Africans are so hungry for this. So I think things will be caught on, and we might be surprised by the speed of other continents. With regard to the Holy Spirit, that's a very important question for fundamental theologians, like Eric Borgman. But I'm only a Kenan lawyer. But I do think that too requires not only to have a theology of a Pneumonology, Pneumatology, excuse me, but to think what does that really mean? How do we tap into that? What does census Fidelium mean? And how do we ascertain that? So that is a whole new field for us. What I find totally fascinating is from the beginning in this process, and not every bishop would again agree with that, but from the Holy See, the request has been, we have to listen to the voices of the people and the other churches, but also of other religions and of non-believers. So what are they telling us? And what do we not hear? So that too, I think, requests from systematic theologians, what does that actually mean in determining the census Fidelium? So we are just opening a whole new book and we can be grateful that we are so young that we have the energy to participate in that. And that's also the prophecy of practical theology, yeah? To listen and God in that space, what was a bit on the side count. But we have to learn, to really listen and not to say, and now we tell you how you have to be a listener church, so how do we do it ourselves? We have to find it out, yeah. How do we listen to the voice of the marginalized? How do we listen to the voice of women? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The heritage, yeah. I go to the next question, okay? Thank you. Thank you, William. It was fun to listen to you, to learn from you. Enlarge the space of your tent. There was a reference to this, although he didn't quote it by Thomas Halik at the introductory lecture that he gave, referring interestingly enough to Pope Benedict that what we need to do is to find a contemporary way to have the so-called form of the non-Jews in front of the temple. Now, if I read a text from scripture, it has to do with make your own tent bigger. It has not a front space. And so there, I see a kind of ambiguity. My bishop, Johann Bonny, I guess you know him, said the idea is indeed to make the place before bigger so we can include people that we have excluded until now. Now, what way is the interpretation going? We have a discussion at the moment in my pastoral unity where I'm now a theologian. Is the idea to, in a hidden way, get back to the old idea, come back to the real church? Or is, like Thomas Halik is repeating time and again, no, the serious dialogue with those who have a different faith or no faith at all is what is the challenge for us today, including the challenge of synodality. Yes, is my system working? Okay. Yes, I think the latter, I mean, we were in Frascati and then the biblical scholar who was with us, an Old Testament scholar, teaching at the Biblical Monroe, but he's also from Burkina Faso, came up with this image. And we had a conversation, shall we use this because it did not come from the documents, but we decided to take it. And around the world, people like the image. We see that too because, except refugees. We also got to report that for refugees, this is a big problem because a tent has a whole different traumatic experience that it brings with them. But for the rest, people like the idea of enlarging, the idea of including people who are not within and expanding the model. By the way, if you want to see a beautiful reflection about enlarging the space of your tent and the meaning of a tent, I can encourage you to look at the website of the diocese of Fulda, where the bishop has given a lens reflection and he went with the scouts. And with the scouts, so the video shows how they built up the tent. What I did not know is that the tent stalker, so with the scouts, apparently they have exactly 12. So that's a very biblical image. And he is then showing how indeed you have to hold tension because it won't push too much, you know, the whole thing collapses. This holding of tensions, that was for us very important. So enlarge the space of your, the people want around the world a welcoming church. They want people to feel welcome. And if you listen to the young people in documents that we read from Frascati, there were several reports where young people said, if my homosexual friends, if my female friends are not welcome in this church, that's not my church. So the church will have to look to what that means. What does this welcoming mean? And not just to preach to the people, but to ask them, what do you think, what is your contribution? And I think Bishop Bonnie actually is one of the bishops who have said we should ask ourselves, also as bishops, how, for example, do parents make decisions about children who have left teachers, who live in gay relationships, who are remarried, divorced, or who have other, you know, live in different situations. How do parents decide who is welcome at the dinner Christmas of the family? What can we learn from that? Because they have to balance different values. And so it's so easy to proclaim a doctrine, but if in real life you have to balance the different values, you know, the unity of the family, which is so important for our society, what does that actually mean, and what can the church learn from those discernment processes? So I think we are, so I don't know if I opened your, if I listen to your, if I respond to your question, and I was just thinking because there was also an issue with enlarge the space of your tent, and I do remember that even when we did the English translation, it suddenly had gone back to four in your tent, and I remember writing to Paul Maureen at the BBC saying, is it four or off? And it's off, he said, it's not four. And certainly not before your tent, so, yeah. We have another two questions, and then I will finish, okay? Okay, Fokker. I am a Fokker from the Catholic Association for Acumenism, and with the association, we are responding to the Pope's invitation to especially young people and church leaders from other churches to come to Rome and pray at the start of this in it. And I have met a lot of enthusiasm for that in the other churches already. I have also seen in enlarged the space of your tent the enthusiasm shown by the people of God to deepen the acumenical dialogue. And my question is, have you seen any signs of acumenical input in the reports? And would you have any tips for engaging with other Christians in this stage of the process in a synodal process? Well, thank you for the question. First of all, the Dicastry for Christian Unity decided to participate in a worldwide synodal process by organizing together with the Foundation Pro-Orienza from Vienna, two major conferences in Rome for the Orthodox world, and then there were two conferences for the Western and for the more free churches. So four conferences were organized with incredible speakers. Again, you can view all of that. It's all online at the Angelicum. I think it's on the website of the Acumenical Institute of the Angelicum in which the Catholics ask the other churches, and I could imagine that you do something similar in the Netherlands. How do you arrive in your church? How do you discern together? Not just arrive at the system, but how do you discern who is involved? What can we learn from you? What is working well? What is not working well? And then maybe again accompanied by theological reflections. What does that mean? If in a synodal church, you have different people make decisions depending on the ecclesiological status, and so what is typical Catholic? What is typical Orthodox? And you have in this country also Orthodox churches, so you could ask them too. And some of them were participate. For example, Bishop Policarpus from Chlala was in Rome, one of the speakers. So I think that would be one way of... But also I would say it's not just this current stage. I would invite you to see this as an opt-mart. So we begin with the whole process, but we should continue it because I think the Roman process can try to help people to keep the energy going, but so much has to come... I mean, the love has to come from both sides, if you like. I think that that's very important. And I think it's helpful if you are creative in making that experience available. Also in the meetings, I was in the past few days in the Johann Anna Müller Institute in Paderborn, Archimentical, there we talked about moral discernment. So we have the big issue, of course, in all our churches, if we say a welcoming church, the issue of homosexuality, the issue of the role of women in the Archimentical world, that is a major issue. And now with a total different head, I'm on the fate and order commission where we produce documents on how do we discern how does the church arrive at a decision in an ethical question? What are the different elements? And yes, I can make for the discernment process, I can list all the ingredients, the eggs and the sugar and the butter and whatever, which means scripture, tradition and all that, but then already the discussion begins what should go first, scripture, tradition, Holy Spirit, church fathers, what is the sequence of that? And we produce a document for that, which is a document, I think, that we will need in our own church. Now, more than anything else, and you can see by the report I gave about the United States. North America is, Canada is quite different from the United States. But we all, if we read the newspapers, the tensions that we have in the North American society are the tensions in the North American church in as much. And I think this was the big surprise for Prague. Anybody who is involved in European politics knows that it's not so easy to get all the countries behind one document, we just have to ask for it in Brussels. But we were able to get one document by holding the tensions together. And some of them are saying, we cannot participate at all with a secularized society. That's the biggest danger for the whole church. And others making a statement saying, God also blessed the secular society. So we keep them in one tension. Some saying, we want women to be ordained, and others saying, if you talk about women, you also have to talk about the virginity of Mary. So try to keep that into one paragraph. So it was possible to, we worked the whole night. Anyway. Thank you so much for your very interesting lecture. We have many students, our faculty, and they're very different. And against that background, I would like to ask you a question. If it is regarding enlarging the space of your tent, are you in favor to give the so-called traditionalist more space? And so opposed Pope Francis, who is giving them less space at the moment? Thank you for the question. I'm not sure if I would agree with the way you would phrase the question. Are you in favor of, because that's, I would probably say, how can we live in a church in which there is a respect for everybody? If we want to be inclusive, we have to see that too. And what does that mean on the practical level? And how can we also see that everybody respects, including the more traditional people, also respect that there might be different opinions? That there might be different opinions or different views. So is there a mutual recognition of groups? And the question then is, and maybe that's also a little bit to the first question that was raised, how can we bring everybody on board and what does that take to listen? And I remember we had an audience with the Pope as a coordinating team. And one of the questions I asked the Pope was, there are people who are very opposed to this process, bishops who are very opposed. If we at the moment see two bishops in the United States, one is saying that the other one is a heretic. I mean, that's quite something to say that about a broader bishop who is a cardinal. So the question is, how can we overcome those polarizations or certainly, and also in the rhetoric and in our own questions, how can we phrase and use a language that does not contribute to confrontation, but that builds bridges. So I would probably say if a person has a different view from mine, and this is what the Pope said, we have to listen to the people who are opposed. There are always people opposed to that. We have to listen and see, do they have a point? So we too have to be open. Everybody has to be open to listen to the other. Do they have a point?