Wednesday. March 13, 2024 at 6:30 p.m.
Resurrection Parish Hall
130 Como Park Blvd.
Buffalo, NY

Host by: Rev. Sean DiMaria, Vicar Forane – Southern Erie County

Bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated religious, and laity gathered around the Holy Father in Rome from October 4th to 29th, 2023. Their mission? To begin the next stage of the Synod on Synodality. After gathering information at the diocesean, regional, and continental stages, it was time to begin a conversation on what is a synodal church. The desire of the Synod participants can be summed up in the last paragraph of the introduction to the synthesis from the first session. “We carry in our hearts the desire, sustained by hope, that the climate of mutual listening and sincere dialogue that we experienced during the days of common work in Rome will radiate in our communities and throughout the world, at the service of the growth of the good seed of the Kingdom of God.”

The synthesis report is broken into three parts:

1.) “The face of the synodal church”

2.) all disciples, all missionaries”

3.) weaving bonds, building community.”

Each part has subtopics which are broken down into

1.) convergence

2.) matters for consideration

3.) proposals.

These proposals are being taken back to local episcopal conferences and hierarchical structures of the Eastern Catholic Churches. For us locally in the United States, that means the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops which met for their fall general assembly the week prior to Thanksgiving in Baltimore.There are many preliminary steps that must be taken before the second and final session in October of 2024. We entrust the Holy Spirit with our path forward, that He may reveal to those involved the true direction God desires for his Church on earth.