Cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio, Archbishop of Bogotá and Primate of Colombia, said in an interview with EWTN en Español that in the Synod of Synodality “no decision is being made against the Gospel or Tradition.”
“If you are afraid because of this experience that is being lived at the Synod, calm down, recover your peace, recover your serenity, decisions are not being made here against what has been the history of two thousand years of following Jesus Christ,” The cardinal responded to the question about what he would say to those who are afraid and feel that “this is no longer the Church,” posed by Omar Aguilar, from the program Catholic Perspective.
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In the Synod, which takes place in the Vatican from October 2 to 27 and is already in the final stretch, “we are seeking to transform ourselves to serve better because 200 years ago certain challenges that we have today did not exist,” said the archbishop. .
“So what the Church seeks today is to understand the reality that its family, its people, its nation is experiencing and try to respond to it, to fill with hope, with life possibilities to that family that is confused and sad,” highlighted the Cardinal Rueda.
“When we talk about change it is not forgetting or rejecting things from the path that the Church has lived in its history of salvation but quite the opposite: it is taking those treasures that we have in the history of salvation and putting them in the appropriate language and form to respond to new challenges.”
3 basic elements to be a missionary disciple
In that sense, the cardinal wanted to highlight three elements so that every baptized person can “live their joyful condition as a missionary disciple.”
1. Prayer
“First, prayer. Do not neglect prayer, personal prayer” as well as “community prayer, which has its depth and its fullness in the Eucharist, in the sacrament of the Eucharist.”
“A Christian with prayer is a baptized person who in the silence of his interiority and conscience finds God,” highlighted the Colombian cardinal.
2. Discernment
The second element is “the gift of discernment to know how to understand in each moment of your life, in the concreteness of your life, what God wants. Not what you want to do, not what you believe is best but the will of God because God has a plan for you, for your family and for your entire life.”
3. Love
The third element is charity or love: “It would be of no use to us to pray and discern if we do not love. Love leads us to be fraternal, love leads us to forgive each other, love leads us to overcome those polarizations, rivalries, envy, that permanent prejudice that the other is thinking against me.”
“When we are capable of loving, we are capable of finding each other, of finding a way to unite with each other and of seeking the common good, the good of all. Not only of Catholics but also of all humanity that needs that loving presence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
The final document of the Synod of Synodality
Cardinal Rueda also encouraged all Christians to be permanently trained and to participate together in the mission of the Catholic Church, which is to announce the Gospel to all.
Regarding the final document of the Synod, the Archbishop of Bogotá specified that “it is not the most important thing, but the final document has been in the works since when you were consulted in your parish, your diocese. There, in the final document is also his simple, humble contribution, with fears, with hopes.”
“The most beautiful thing about those of us who are in this work is that we discover the action of the Holy Spirit that takes over the voices. Suddenly neither artificial intelligence nor human intelligence would be able to put together and put together what the diverse voice is telling us. However, when it is the Holy Spirit that works, it takes the diversity of elements and gives it unity,” he added.
The cardinal also indicated that this text will first be at the service of the Pope, who will decide what is done with it, and then at the service of the entire Church.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.