Synod releases document on path toward 2028 Ecclesial Assembly

Vatican News

Remembering, interpreting, orienting, celebrating. These are the four key stages accompanying local Churches, Bishops' Conferences, and continental groupings towards the Ecclesial Assembly that will take place in October 2028 in the Vatican.

They are proposed by the General Secretariat of the Synod in support of the implementation phase through the document Towards the 2027–2028 Assemblies: stages, criteria, and tools in preparation for the 2027–2028 Assemblies, published on 20 May.

The text defines the calendar, methodology, and criteria through which local Churches throughout the world and their national and continental groupings are called to share the fruits of the journey begun after the Final Document of the 2021–2024 Synod, leading up to the Ecclesial Assembly of October 2028.

The journey

The process, which will lead to the celebration of an assembly at each stage, unfolds in four progressive moments, marked by key verbs that highlight their ecclesial and spiritual purpose.

The first half of 2027 is dedicated to Remembering. Evaluation assemblies in dioceses and eparchies are called to reread the experience of implementing the Final Document through a narrative report and a letter to the other Churches.

In the second half of 2027 comes the time to Interpret. Assemblies of Bishops' Conferences (national or regional) will prepare a theological-pastoral report and a letter addressed to the other local Churches.

Orienting

Orienting will be the stage of the first four months of 2028, when continental Assemblies will produce a forward-looking report capable of identifying shared priorities and orientations.

October 2028 will then be the moment to Celebrate. The ecclesial assembly of the whole Church will gather in the Vatican together with the Holy Father. In this way, the journey undertaken will be brought into unity and entrusted to the discernment of the entire Church.

At every level, the Assembly does not represent the final stage of the process, but rather a celebratory moment of evaluation, synthesis and, above all, renewed impetus for the Church’s synodal conversion.

Safeguarding

A common question safeguards the unity of the process, adapted at each stage: in light of the journey undertaken since the conclusion of the 2021–2024 Synod, and with a view to offering its fruits as a gift to the other Churches and to the Holy Father, what concrete face of a missionary synodal Church and what new paths of synodality are emerging in your community?

The document clarifies that this is not a repetition of the Synod consultation, nor the addition of further tasks to the life of communities, but rather a rereading of what has already been experienced, recognizing its fruits and difficulties, and making the experience gained available within a logic of exchange of gifts among the Churches.

Report of the continental Assemblies

The first two Assemblies—those at local and national level—will prepare two complementary texts: a reflection document (the narrative report for dioceses and eparchies, the theological-pastoral report for Episcopal Conferences) and a letter to the other local Churches, drafted during the Assembly itself.

It is this latter document that becomes the concrete instrument of the exchange of gifts: every community offers what it has matured and becomes ready to receive what is offered by other Churches.

The continental Assemblies, meanwhile, will prepare a forward-looking report that will serve in drafting the Instrumentum laboris for the 2028 Ecclesial Assembly.

All materials will be sent to the General Secretariat of the Synod according to the following timetable: by 30 June 2027 for the diocesan and eparchial stage; by 31 December 2027 for the Episcopal Conferences stage; and by 30 April 2028 for the continental stage, in preparation for the Ecclesial Assembly of October 2028.

Cardinal Grech: a time of shared discernment

“We are proposing to local Churches not an additional task,” says Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, “but rather a time of shared discernment and thanksgiving, in which to reread together what the Spirit is causing to grow in the Church and to recognise the steps we are called to take. The Assemblies are not sociological consultations, deliberative processes, or technical evaluations. Rather, they are a profound ecclesial and spiritual experience of discernment: a moment of synthesis and renewed impetus, so that the exchange of gifts among the Churches may become a concrete experience and synodality may increasingly be translated into the ordinary style of ecclesial life at the service of mission.”

The document underlines that the composition of the Assemblies must be consistent with their purpose and that the selection of participants should ensure appropriate attention to the relationship between men and women and between different generations, to cultural and ecclesial diversity.

These include priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, members of associations, movements, and new communities, and faithful not belonging to organised structures, as well as the presence of people living in situations of fragility or marginalization.

Responsibility for the process belongs to the diocesan or eparchial bishop for local Assemblies, to the president of the Bishops' Conference for national or regional Assemblies, and to the heads of continental bodies for that level. Synodal teams, established at every level, will oversee organisation and coordination.