Imminent: Working Document for Ireland’s Synodal Assembly – 17th Oct 2026

Aug 31, 2026 | 0 comments

The Instrumentum Laboris or working document for Ireland’s Synodal Assembly of 17th October 2026 is expected in the week beginning 31st of August 2026, or next.

The event itself will happen at the City North Hotel, Gormanston, Co. Meath.  As a one-day event it will have a packed programme – centred on a digest of the reports of seven working groups, focused on seven priorities selected as central to the concerns of a process of listening, prayer and discernment that began in 2021.

Those seven themes are:

  • Belonging
  • Co-responsibility & Lay Ministry
  • Family
  • Formation & Catechesis
  • Healing
  • Women
  • Youth

The Instrumentum Laboris is expected to offer practical, mission-focused proposals for action related to these themes in all dioceses.  The assembly will represent Irish diocesan synodal teams, other Irish Catholic movements and associations and other consultative bodies such as diocesan pastoral councils and councils of priests.

ACI has been represented in the synodal process so far – and has been invited to send two delegates to the Synodal Assembly. We will be reporting on the working document as soon as it arrives and welcoming feedback from members, including at an online Zoom discussion to be arranged as soon as possible.

For links to all major documents associated with the Irish Synodal Pathway so far, click here.

Please ‘watch this space’! 

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ACI’s Campaign for Lumen Gentium 37

The Promise of Synodality

What we have experienced of synodality so far gives ACI real hope that a longstanding structural injustice in the church may at last be acknowledged and overcome.

As all Irish bishops well know, the 'co-responsibility' they urge lay people to share - as numbers and energies of clergy decline - has been sabotaged time and again by canonical rules that deny representational authority and continuity to parish pastoral councils.  ACI's 2019 call for the immediate honouring of Lumen Gentium Article 37 becomes more urgent by the day and is supported by the following documents - also presented to the ICBC in October 2019.

The Common Priesthood of the People of God and the Renewal of the Church
It was Catholic parents and victims of clerical abuse who taught Catholic Bishops to prioritise the safeguarding of children in the church

Jesus as Model for the Common Priesthood of the People of God
It was for challenging religious hypocrisy and injustice that Jesus was accused and crucified. He is therefore a model for the common priesthood of the laity and for the challenging of injustice - in society and within the church.

A Suggested Strategy for the Recovery of the Irish and Western Catholic Church
Recovery of the church depends upon acknowledgment of the indispensable role of the common priesthood of the lay people of God and the explicit abandonment by bishops and clergy of paternalism and clericalism - the expectation of deference from lay people rather than honesty and integrity.

For the full story of ACI's campaign for the honouring of Article 37 of Lumen Gentium, click here.

Prayer

"Come Holy Spirit, Renew Your wonders in this our day, as by a new Pentecost. Grant to Your Church that, being of one mind and steadfast in prayer with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and following the lead of blessed Peter, it may advance the reign of our Divine Saviour, the reign of truth and justice, the reign of love and peace. Amen."

Saint Pope John XXIII, 1962 - In preparation for Vatican Council II, 1962-65.

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