Synodality is an issue that everyone in the church needs to understand and embrace, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, told an audience at the University of Notre Dame.
The cardinal addressed “The Role of the Synodal Bishop” in a talk on 26th February at the Indiana university where the audience included bishops, university administrators, members of the faculty, undergraduate and graduate students and laypeople.
Cardinal Grech, a native of Malta, came from Rome to explore, discuss and pray about their own roles as bishops in the synodal church. The cardinal said a diocesan bishop’s perception of his own ministry must match this theological reality of the church he serves.
Bishops are “successors of Jesus’ Apostles through the Holy Spirit. They are ordained to be mediators, facilitators and servants from within the whole church,” the cardinal said.
Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, head of the host diocese, Fort Wayne-South Bend, thanked the prelate and agreed with Cardinal Grech’s highlighting of the crucial role of the Spirit in the synodal process. He said: “We all need ongoing conversion-not just conversion to synodality, but, as Cardinal Grech noted at the end of his talk, conversion to the Gospel.”
Picture: Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., and Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the synod, are pictured in a combination photo. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller/CNS photo/Paul Haring)