Bishop Argüello: Synodality is called to missionary communion to evangelize

The Archbishop of Valladolid and president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), Mons. Luis Argüello, considers that synodality allows us to respond to the call that the Lord makes to us to “missionary communion” to “evangelize against the current.”

The prelate, who is in Rome to participate in the second assembly of the Synod of Synodality, has reflected in a recent letter on what this process promoted by Pope Francis means.

Under the title Letter from Rome. Why and why synodality?Bishop Argüello maintains that “synodality is the opportunity to fully embrace the Pentecost of Vatican II in the change of era, accelerated in recent decades.”

This process, he continues, “allows us to advance in responding to the call that the Lord makes to us to missionary communion in the moment in which we live, marked by individualism and the urgent need to evangelize against the current.”

Thus, synodality offers, in the opinion of the prelate, a fourfold opportunity to the Catholic Church. Firstly, to move “from a self-referential, ecclesiocentric life to a life that looks to the Lord (conversion) and towards the world to announce the Kingdom (vocation). Secondly, to go from clericalism to a service of charity “that takes shape in the vocational identification of each one: pastoral charity, political charity and consummate charity.”

Thirdly, Bishop Argüello considers that the Synod of Synodality allows us to travel the path from “an understanding of the Church as a perfect society, to a sacrament that announces and makes transparent, in germs and designs, the Kingdom of God.” The fourth opportunity consists of going “from a static life to a dynamic life of pilgrimage, communication and surrender.”

In this sense, the president of the EEC considers that we must insist on these four points “because the perception of this Synod seems to underline an obsession with internal issues and struggles for the distribution of power.”

In his opinion, “nothing could be further from the intention of Pope Francis in making this proposal to the Church.”

For Bishop Argüello, the synodal Church is a people that “discovers in the Eucharist its differentiated co-responsibility, according to the place that each one occupies around the altar.” From this conception springs the mission of the Church on the journey “for which we are all responsible” and which emphasizes listening, dialogue, the first announcement and “Christian initiation and the testimony and offering of mercy.”

Regarding the role of ordained ministers, the Archbishop of Valladolid emphasizes that it constitutes a “humble sacramental mediation.” This implies that pastors cannot carry out this service, the prelate explains, “if we are not united among ourselves—collegiality—in the various circles that express our sacramental fraternity: presbytery, episcopal college and communion. with Peter y sub Petro”.