Yesterday Benedict XVI flew to Loreto (in the Italian
province of Ancona, in the Marche region) to entrust the Year of Faith
and the Synod of Bishops to the Virgin Mary. The Pope confided to
bishops from Le Marche that: “We all feel at home in Loreto, in the
House of Mary and I have asked her to protect the Synod and the Year of
Faith. We must ask the Virgin Mary to offer the world the truth about
God loving us.”
90% of local churches and other ecclesiastical bodies filled in the questionnaire required for the preparation of the “Instrumentum laboris”, the document that functions as a starting point for the general synod on the new evangelisation according to the data provided this morning by Nikola Eterovic, Secretary General of the Synod.
The XIII General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will be attended by 262 Synod Fathers, the highest number in the history of Synods. 103 come from Europe, 63 from America, 50 form Africa, 39 from Asia and 7 from Oceania.
The majority of Synod Fathers were elected 172 by Episcopal conferences and the other ten by the Union of Superior Generals; 3 were chosen by the Oriental Catholic Churches sui juris; 37 are participating as ex officio members and 40 were chosen by the Pope.
These include 6 Patriarchs, 49 cardinals, 3 major archbishops, one of whom is a cardinal, 71 archbishops, 120 bishops and 14 priests. In terms of the positions held by these individuals, 10 are heads of the Oriental Churches sui juris, 32 are presidents of Episcopal conferences, 26 are heads of dicasteries of the Roman Curia, 211 are Ordinaries and 11 Auxiliaries. Benedict XVI appointed the Archbishop of Washington (U.S.), Cardinal Donald William Wuerl, as Relator General and the Archbishop of Montpellier, Mgr. Pierre-Marie Carré, as Special Secretary.
The assembly will open this Sunday at 9:30, with a solemn mass presided over by Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Square, in the Vatican. During the celebration he will announce two new “doctors of the Church”, the saints Giovanni D' Avila and Hildegard of Bingen. Discussions will draw to a close on Sunday 28 with a mass co-celebrated by all Synod Fathers and priests participating in the assembly. On Sunday 21 the Pope will preside over a canonization mass for seven new saints: Giacomo Berthieu, Pedroa Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Maria del Monte Carmelo Salles y Barangueras, Marianna Cope, Caterina Tekakwitha and Anna Schaeffer.
The mass on Thursday 11 October will be particularly important. It will also be celebrated in St. Peter’s Square and Benedict XVI will solemnly proclaim the beginning of the Year of Faith which will end on 24 November 2013, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Eterociv recalled that 45 experts and 49 auditors chosen among specialists and figures involved in the evangelisation effort across all continents, will take part in the synodal assembly.
Some “fraternal delegates” will also be attending the Synod, on behalf of 15 Churches that are not in communion with the Catholic Church: among them the Anglican Primate Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, who will also be attending the mass on 11 October.
The special guests are: Brother Alois, prior of the Taizé Community (France), the President of the American Bible Society, Lamar vest and Nobel Prize winner Werner Arber, a Protestant professor of microbiology in Basel (Switzerland) and President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. 12 of the 69 living conciliar fathers who participated in the Second Vatican Council will attend the Pope’s mass on 11 October, on the 50th anniversary of the Council.
If we take into account the five press agents, 32 assistants and 30 translators attending at the 13th General Assembly of the Synod, the total number of participants at the event rises to above 400, Eterovic said.