Synod: Fr. Galli’s theological reflection on Module B2

Synodal Co-Responsibility in Evangelizing Mission
How to share gifts and tasks in the service of the Gospel?
Fr. Dr. Carlos María Galli
Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Universidad Católica Argentina
Member of the International Theological Commission - Coordinator of the CELAM Theological-Pastoral Team

The Instrumentum laboris places the theme of Co-responsibility in the mission at the center of discernment (B.2). It refers to the exchange between the churches considering communion (IL 35) and mission (IL 22, 41). It inspires a question prior to the five questions: How to share gifts and tasks in the service of the Gospel? This theological reflection contemplates the intrinsic union between synodality and mission (1); the co-responsibility of the baptized (2); the exchange in the service of the Gospel (3).

1. The synodal Church is missionary. The missionary Church is synodal.

1. The Episcopalis Communio Constitution highlights the evangelizing purpose of the Synod.

   "Today, in a historical moment where the Church is embarking on 'a new evangelizing stage' [EG 1], which asks it to establish itself in 'a permanent state of mission' in all regions of the earth [EG 25], the Synod of Bishops, like any other ecclesiastical institution, is increasingly called to be a 'suitable channel for the evangelization of today's world rather than for self-preservation' [EG 27]."[1]

2. The Church, like the Trinity and the Eucharist, is a mystery of missionary communion. The Synod dedicated to young people developed the integrating expression missionary synodality[2]. It creatively embraced the document from the International Theological Commission on synodality, which asserts:

"In the Church, synodality is lived in service to the mission. 'The pilgrim Church is missionary by its very nature' (Ecclesia peregrinans natura sua missionaria est) (AG 2), 'it exists to evangelize' (EN 14). The entire People of God is the subject of the Gospel announcement. In it, every baptized person is called to be a protagonist of the mission because we are all missionary disciples" (SIN 53).[3]

The text cites the conciliar decree Ad gentes: "The pilgrim Church is missionary by nature" (AG 2) and Paul VI's exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi: "the Church exists to evangelize" (EN 14).

3. When opening this synodal process, the Bishop of Rome condensed the main lines of the Council.[4] The Preparatory Document for this Assembly identifies the synodal Church and the outgoing Church (DP 15). The Praedicate Evangelium Constitution points out the link between synodality and mission (PE 4)[5]. The Document for the Continental Stage states that synodality leads to missionary renewal.[6] The text of the Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean says: "The Church on the way, pilgrim towards the full Kingdom, is missionary because it is synodal and is synodal because it is missionary".[7] The Instrumentum laboris states: "The mission constitutes the dynamic horizon from which to think of the synodal Church, to which it gives a push towards 'ecstasy', which consists of going out of oneself" (IL 51).

4. The Second Vatican Council developed the expression natura missionaria to say that the mission is essential.[8] It arises "from the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to God the Father's design" (AG 2). A dynamic ecclesiology asserts not only that the Church has a mission, but that the mission of the Triune God has a Church.[9] The pilgrim Church is historical - eschatological. We are on the way, we are missionary synodals, we go together announcing the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Synodality is missionary, mission is synodal. The phrase "missionary synodal Church" (IL 54) reinforces the ecclesial nature and the dynamics of the sending: "Go and make all peoples my disciples" (Mt 28,19).

2. The co-responsability of all the baptized in mission

1. Jesus promised the apostles, "But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you,g and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8). The Spirit is the primary agent of evangelization (EN 75). The meeting held in Jerusalem is a model of synodal life in service of the mission (cf. Acts 15:1-35). The discernment carried out under the guidance of the Spirit confirmed the universal vocation of the People that God forms in and from the nations of the earth (Acts 15:14).

2. The Spirit distributes "individually to each person as he wishes" (1 Cor 12:11). "To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit" (1 Cor 12:7). The baptized, both men and women, are called to share gifts and tasks in each local church – diocese or eparchy –, in groupings of particular churches at the regional, national, and continental level, and in the entire Church.

3. Following Vatican II and Pope Paul VI, Pope Francis teaches that the entire People of God proclaim the Gospel (EG 111-134; cf. AG 35, EN 59).[10] What belongs to the entire People of God pertains to everyone in the People of God. The movement goes from "us" to "I": the Church is the communal subject of the mission, and within it, each one is called to evangelize. Every Christian can say, "woe to me if I do not preach it [the Gospel]!" (1 Cor 9:16) and "I am a mission" (EG 273). We are a mission, "we are always missionary disciples" (EG 119-121), and that's why today we reflect on the mission (B.2.1).

4. Baptism and faith establish the universal vocation to holiness and mission. Every Christian is called to the fullness of love and to proclaim the Gospel. Intensifying co-responsibility should help us see how lay charisms enrich Christian communities and improve the lives of the poor; how to recreate bonds of mutuality, reciprocity, and complementarity between men and women; how to recognize and promote the dignity of women in the Church (B.2.2-3).

5. Discussion will center on the exchange between individuals, communities, institutions, and movements in the local church; and on the difficulties of articulating the laity, consecrated life, and ordained ministry in a ministerial Church (B.2.2). There are various types of ministries and ministers rooted in Baptism. Stable ones: mothers and fathers; spontaneous ones: popular prayers; recognized ones: Caritas volunteers or liturgical singers; instituted ones: lay catechists. There are new ones: my father was a listening minister in his parish. The ordained ministries in a missionary key will also be analyzed (B.2.4; B.2.5). We can all advance in pastoral conversion.

3. The exchange of gifts and tasks in service to the Gospel

1. When addressing catholicity, the Lumen Gentium Constitution refers to cultural riches and ecclesiastical diversities. In this context, it considers the exchange between the churches. "Between all the parts of the Church there remains a bond of close communion (vincula intimae communionis) whereby they share spiritual riches, apostolic workers and temporal resources. For the members of the people of God are called to share these goods in common (ad communicandum enim bona), and of each of the Churches the words of the Apostle hold good: ‘According to the gift that each has received, administer it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God’.(123)" (LG 13c).

2. Grace causes the evangelized to become an evangelizer and the disciple to become a missionary. Ancient churches transmit faith and form new churches that, when growing, give from their poverty and become sister churches. Many immigrants become spontaneous missionaries and help invigorate the faith. They bring not only their poverty, needs, and sins but also their riches, values, virtues, and especially their faith, which can offer a valuable evangelizing contribution.

3. The communion of goods belongs to the lifestyle reflected in the summaries of Acts: "They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life (koinonía), to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers... All who believed were together and had all things in common they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need..." (Acts 2:42-47). The Council calls things that are shared dona et bona. Lumen gentium 13 mentions three groups of goods: spiritual riches (divitias espirituales), apostolic workers (operarios apostolicos), and material resources (temporalia subsidia). All together form God's multiform grace.

4. Among spiritual riches are God's self-communication, the Body of Christ, the life of the Spirit, the Word, grace, and the Church. These goods establish the communio sanctorum. This Creed formula has two interconnected meanings: communion among holy people (sancti) and in holy things (sancta)[11]. The Eucharist is communion and participation. "Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf" (1 Cor 10:17). Spiritual riches include the treasures of the People of God: revelation, charity, holiness, wisdom, liturgy, spirituality, culture, art, the kerygma, theology, etc.

5. The apostolic worker is the evangelized evangelizer. The first good they share is their person because love is self-giving. St. Paul says: "So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us" (1 Thess 2:8). Talents are gifts to mature for others (Mt 23:14-30). Time is the life we give as workers of the first or last hour (Mt 20:1-16).

6. " The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common" (Acts 4:32). If we share spiritual gifts, how can we not communicate material goods? “If they have decided to make some contribution for the poor among the holy ones in Jerusalem, they decided to do it, and in fact they are indebted to them, for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to serve them in material blessings." (Rom 15:26-27). At the Aparecida Conference, the directors of Adveniat and Misereor, who help our churches greatly, thanked us for the vitality of faith and love for the poor.

7. How to share gifts and tasks? "Give freely what you have received freely" (Mt 10:8). The mission serves the gift of encountering Christ through overflow, testimony, proclamation, and attraction.

God's love is much more (pollô mallon) than sin: "For if by that one person’s transgression the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one person Jesus Christ overflow for the many" (Rom 5:15). Paul modified the verb "to abound" (perisseuo), added the prefix "super" (hyper), creating the verb "to superabound". "Where sin increased, grace superabounded" (Rom 5:17). The logic of "much more" generates hope.[12]

With that hope, I desire that, by the action of the Spirit, wherever communion abounds, synodality may superabound and wherever synodality abounds, mission may superabound.

[1] Francesco, Costituzione Apostolica Episcopalis Communio sul Sinodo dei Vescovi, Vaticano, LEV, 2018, 1.

[2] Sinodo dei vescovi, I giovani, la fede e il discernimento vocazionale, Vaticano, LEV, 2018, 118.

[3] Comisión Teológica Internacional, La sinodalidad en la vida y la misión de la Iglesia, Buenos Aires, Agape, 2018. Cf. S. Madrigal (ed.), La sinodalidad en la vida y en la misión de la Iglesia. Comentario teológico, Madrid, BAC, 2019.

[4] Cf. FRANCIS, Address at the Beginning of the Synodal Process. October 9, 2021, accessed October 10, 2023, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/speeches/2021/october/documents/20211009-apertura-camminosinodale.html.

[5] Francesco, Costituzione Apostolica sulla Curia romana Praedicate Evangelium, Vaticano, LEV, 2022, Preambolo, 4.

[6] GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF THE SYNOD, "Enlarge the space of your tent" (Is 54:2). Working Document for the Continental Stage. Synod 2021-2024. For a Synodal Church: communion, participation and mission, Vatican, LEV, 2022, 99.

[7] CELAM - ECCLESIAL ASSEMBLY, Towards a Synodal Church going out to the peripheries. Reflexiones y propuestas pastales de la Primera Asamblea Eclesial de América Latina y El Caribe, Bogotá, CELAM, 2022, 133.

[8] Cf. S. MAZZOLINI, The Church is essentially missionary, Rome, LEG, 1999, 102-111 y 232-251.

[9] Cf. S. DIANICH, Chiesa estroversa, Milan, Paulines, 1987, 114.

[10] Cf. C. M. GALLI, "The Missionary People of God," in: G. TANGORRA (ed.), The Church Mystery and Mission. Fifty years after "Lumen Gentium" (1964-2014), Vatican, Lateran University Press, 2016, 251-290.

[11] “Los fieles (sancti) se alimentan con el Cuerpo y la Sangre de Cristo (sancta) para crecer en la comunión con el Espíritu Santo (koinônia) y comunicarla al mundo” (Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica, 948).

[12] Cf. P. Ricoeur, Introducción a la simbólica del mal, Buenos Aires, La Aurora, 1976, 141-165.