N
Nickkname
Guest
Tomorrow morning in St Paul’s Outside the Walls, the Pope will celebrate the opening Mass for the 12th Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, this time meeting on “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.”
The second synod of B16’s pontificate – and the first plotted out under his watch (2005’s Synod on the Eucharist was largely inherited from John Paul II) – the three week gathering’s been described as a “synod of novelties”: major addresses will be given by a rabbi and the patriarch of Constantinople, a record number of women and lay leaders will be present, and delegates will have even less time (five minutes, down from eight) for their interventions, even if it’s to facilitate Papa Ratzi’s preference for more open discussion as each day’s sessions wind down.
Yet of them all, the event’s most prominent aspect won’t be taking place before the 300 invitees inside the Aula, but on the slightly more accessible channels of the RAI, Italy’s state television. Beginning tomorrow with the Pope’s reading of the first chapter of Genesis, no less than 1,300 politicians, athletes, celebrities and clerics from the various branches of Christianity, joined by a contingent of Jewish and Muslim luminaries, will take turns reading the Scriptures, cover-to-cover, for a national audience.
Read the rest
The second synod of B16’s pontificate – and the first plotted out under his watch (2005’s Synod on the Eucharist was largely inherited from John Paul II) – the three week gathering’s been described as a “synod of novelties”: major addresses will be given by a rabbi and the patriarch of Constantinople, a record number of women and lay leaders will be present, and delegates will have even less time (five minutes, down from eight) for their interventions, even if it’s to facilitate Papa Ratzi’s preference for more open discussion as each day’s sessions wind down.
Yet of them all, the event’s most prominent aspect won’t be taking place before the 300 invitees inside the Aula, but on the slightly more accessible channels of the RAI, Italy’s state television. Beginning tomorrow with the Pope’s reading of the first chapter of Genesis, no less than 1,300 politicians, athletes, celebrities and clerics from the various branches of Christianity, joined by a contingent of Jewish and Muslim luminaries, will take turns reading the Scriptures, cover-to-cover, for a national audience.
Read the rest