Vatican Synod Ends 2023 Plenary Session; Proposals on Hot-Button Topics Absent from Final Document

The 2023 leg of the Vatican's two-year synod of bishops concluded on Sunday (October 29) with a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica after it published a "synthesis report" and a letter addressed "to the People of God" the night prior (Saturday, October 28).

The next plenary session is scheduled for October next year.

Synod Document's Proposals

According to EWTN, the report - which was only available in Italian as of writing - outlined key proposals discussed during the closed-door conversations in the four-week assembly.

The document was meticulously reviewed and approved paragraph by paragraph by a vote of 344 synod delegates - composed mostly of bishops and cardinals, but for the first time, also included non-bishops and lay Catholics as voting members.

A paragraph describing "uncertainties surrounding the theology of the diaconal ministry" and calling for more reflection on women's access to the diaconate received the most negative votes.

Each paragraph needed a two-thirds majority, the Associated Press reported.

It proposed what the Holy See called a "synodal church" that implemented synodality throughout the church's governance, theology, mission, and discernment of doctrine and pastoral issues.

Furthermore, the text aimed to be a "tool at the service of ongoing discernment."

Vatican spokesman Paolo Ruffini told reporters that over 1,000 amendments were submitted by synod delegates to the original draft of the report after it was presented to the assembly on Wednesday (October 25).

Proposals on Women's Ordination, LGBT+ Catholics Absent in Document

The document covered 20 topics, ranging from a treatise on the dignity of Catholic women to the pope's role as Bishop of Rome in the College of Bishops. Each topic outlined a point of convergence, matters for consideration, and proposals to pitch to local congregations.

Over 80 proposals were approved in the synod vote, including establishing a new "baptismal ministry of listening and accompaniment," initiating discernment processes regarding the decentralization of the Church, and strengthening the College of Cardinals into a "synodal council at the service of the Petrine ministry," as the papacy is also called.

Among the other proposals in the document included lectors in Catholic liturgies being given a preaching ministry "in appropriate contexts," implementing systems to make bishops more accountable in economic matters, supporting "digital missionaries," and promoting initiatives enabling a "shared discernment of controversial, doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues in the light of the Word of God, Church teaching, theological reflection, and valuing synodal experience."

However, the document has not provided definitive conclusions on hot-button topics such as same-sex blessings, women's ordination, priestly celibacy, "Eucharistic hospitality" for interfaith couples, and the assignment of handling of abuse cases to an independent body instead of the bishops.

It was previously reported that five conservative cardinals challenged Pope Francis regarding such issues in a "dubia" that they published on the eve of the opening of this year's synod proceedings.

Prior to this, American Cardinal Raymond Burke - one of the five who signed the latest dubia - recommended a Q&A book warning about the synod, which its authors call a "Pandora's box" and a "Trojan horse."

Pope Reminds Synod Participants of the Gospel's Two Greatest Commandments

During the concluding Mass on Sunday, the pope told the participants of the synod in his homily that the love of God could not be confined to personal agenda.

He also told the congregation that the best way to reform the church was to follow the two greatest commandments emphasized by Jesus in the gospel passage for Sunday's liturgy: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

"We are always at risk of thinking that we can 'control God,' that we can confine his love to our own agenda," Francis said. "Instead, the way he acts is always unpredictable, it goes beyond, and consequently, this action of God demands amazement and adoration."

The pontiff also underlined the Catholic practice of Eucharistic adoration - where Catholics pray in what the church calls the "Real Presence" of Jesus in the form of bread - to "struggle against all types of idolatry" in the modern world.

"Let us be vigilant, lest we find that we are putting ourselves at the center rather than him," he added. "And let us return to worship. May worship be central for those of us who are pastors: let us devote time every day to intimacy with Jesus the Good Shepherd in the Tabernacle."

A similar prayer service was held on Friday night (October 27) to conclude a day of prayer and fasting for the peace of the Middle East amid the 2023 Israel-Hamas War.