Your own reaction to the preparatory document for the assembly is important to us.
Seven Priorities have been listed for discussion:
- Belonging: fostering a Church of welcome, inclusion, and safety where each person finds a home in community and in Christ.
- Co-responsibility and Lay Ministry: empowering all the baptised, women and men, to share responsibility for leadership and mission through new models of ministry and decision making.
- Family: supporting the domestic Church as the primary place of faith transmission and belonging, and strengthening its connection with parishes and schools.
- Formation and Catechesis: Formal instruction in the tenets of the Christian faith – which are often compiled in a catechism as a series of answers to particular questions.
- Healing: acknowledging wounds, especially those caused by abuse; committing to accountability, justice, and reconciliation; and ensuring safe spaces for survivors and all who carry pain.
- Women: recognising and including women’s gifts, leadership, and co-responsibility at every level of Church life, as a matter of justice and credibility.
- Youth: engaging young people with authenticity, offering them meaningful roles in leadership and mission, and listening to their hopes and challenges.
To download the complete preparatory document and associated questions, click here.
If you feel strongly about any of these seven issues – or any other issue not listed here – please get back to us as soon as possible by emailing info@acireland.ie .
To remind yourself of ACI’s Spring 2025 Submission on these themes, click here.
On a general level, the topics for discussion, as described, seem primed to channel discussion/reporting unto “safe” ground, destined for a soft focus output capable of flexible interpretation and destined for consignment eventually to a dusty shelf. Inclusion of specific, targeted outcomes would help here.
An over-riding problem in the Western world is the increasing number of backs being turned on all religions. A module on reaching out to discuss this phenomenon with other faiths (Christian and non-Christian of long standing) would help focus the overall report on the common spirituality of all humanity, grounded in the noise of everyday life and infused with the presence of the one eternal God; acknowledging the futility of mutual assumptions of the superiority of one faith over another (and all the pain that has wrought and continues so to do).
That ‘soft focus’ has also the purpose of encouraging Irish Catholics of differing opinions on the ‘hot-button’ issues to listen to one another in the same space – not to prevent altogether the raising of those issues. The still unresolved matters of transparency and accountability on clerical abuse, gender inequality, clerical bias in canon law relating to pastoral councils, the recruitment and training of Eucharistic presiders etc – have not gone away – while that crucial issue of relationship with other faiths and Christian denominations – and none – remains relevant also. The Kilkenny event will be an unprecedented dialogical experiment for the Irish Church, with everyone remembering Jesus’s promise to be present wherever Christians are gathered. Let’s not either over-expect or underestimate at this early stage?
Well structured ideas but little practical work and no recognition of the problem of clergy who refuse to participate and of the power exerted by fundamentalist Catholics. I would like to see more work on the ground to further the aims of the process and greater involvement of the laity. Revolution rarely happens from the top down.
Does the reported widespread opting out of the synodal process by Irish clergy make it all-the-more important that at least some lay people should be meeting these times – to discuss how to share or take responsibility?
As someone who participated in synodality training last year I was impressed by the commitment of all who participated, and their readiness for responsibility. They were well aware of the many who have yet to experience inclusive and open discussion of the way forward, and tended to share that perception that change will not come from above. There too misgivings were raised about clerical non-participation – as they have been in my own diocesan synodal discussions.
My experience of fundamentalism is limited to someone who regarded the entire synodal process as dangerous and illegitimate – because it was initiated by Pope Francis. Those who protested that the 2022 Irish national synodal synthesis did not represent their point of view did not succeed in stopping the process however. I am not sure therefore that fundamentalism will turn up in any strength in Kilkenny this weekend (Oct 18th 2025) – but we’ll see.
All non-participation is obviously an exercise of some kind of power, but does not that too argue for supporting whatever synodal activity is happening? The blocking power of clergy is itself diminishing as time passes – so synodality is surely the only game going that committed and reform-minded lay people can play?
God Loves You. This is What I feel the Synodal process should be keeping its gaze on and I feel in doing so you are letting the guiding light of the Holy Spirit in to guide the Body of Christ (The Church) in the continual build up and spread of Gods kingdom. For it is not our will but Gods will. All should be attentive to the will and guiding light of the Holy Spirit and how we all can convey the message God Loves you reminding people through your actions and interactions with them in their daily struggles and sickness that they are not alone, that God walks with them side by side. As someone that has not taken part in the synodal process or indeed not taken any interest in it for the past 3-4 years. I keep in touch with your website along with others to see what’s happening in the life of the church. One thing that has struck me after all this time is has the Holy Spirit been allowed in to guide the church in conveying this salvific message that all of us,priests and the lay congregation by virtue of our baptism are called to spread this message. I think that the seven topics can be encompassed into one in order to spread the most important message God Loves You. I hope and pray that every participant may keeps their gaze on The Holy Spirit and be willing and trusting enough to let Gods work be done for it is not our will but your Lord. Thank you.