THE Roman Catholic Church’s three-year Synod on Synodality (News, 25 October) has concluded on Sunday with a final report recommending greater lay involvement in decision-making, and more leadership positions for women, as well as closer ecumenical co-operation and a “culture of transparency, accountability, and evaluation” in church life.

The 28,000-word report, For a Synodal Church: Communion, participation, mission, was published in Italian at the close of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, attended in Rome by 370 participants (News, 18 October).

The Synod, it says, was marked by “richness and fruitfulness”, but also by “a need for healing, reconciliation and rebuilding of trust within the Church” after “too many scandals”.

Synodality signifies “a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform to make the Church more participatory and missionary”, the document says. “All believers are called to contribute to this impetus, accepting the charisms that the Spirit distributes abundantly to each and committing themselves to putting them at the service of the Kingdom with humility and creative resourcefulness.

“We have called our sins by name: against peace, creation, indigenous peoples, migrants, minors, women, the poor, listening, communion. This has made us understand that synodality requires repentance and conversion.”

Among its recommendations, the report calls for “full implementation” of “opportunities regarding the role of women”, and says that there are “no reasons to prevent women from taking on leadership roles in the Church” (News, 11 October).

While the question of female deacons remains open to further “discernment”, it says that the “pain and suffering” of women was a recurring theme at the Synod. The report calls for more inclusive language in “preaching, teaching, catechesis and drafting of official Church documents”, as well as greater acknowledgement of women saints, theologians, and mystics.

The report calls for lay people to be “given greater opportunities for participation” in “forms of service and ministry in response to pastoral needs”, including presiding over Sunday services and administering communion and sacraments.

With many “feeling excluded or judged also because of their marital situation, identity and sexuality”, laity should also be more involved in pastoral and economic planning, and have “a greater voice in the choice of bishops and all levels of decision-making”.

While the “inalienable” decision-making competence of the Pope and bishops is “rooted in the hierarchical structure of the Church established by Christ”, this is not “unconditional”, the report says.

To achieve a “salutary decentralisation”, further work should be done on the “doctrinal and disciplinary competence” of Bishops’ Conferences in identifying “appropriate expressions” of the faith in local cultural contexts, and on “which matters should be reserved to the Pope and which can be returned to the bishops in their Churches or groupings of Churches”.

After the reaction to a December 2023 doctrinal declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, authorising blessings for people in same-sex relationships (News, 22 December 2023 and 5 January), the report says that Vatican dicasteries should consult Bishops’ Conferences before “publishing important normative documents”.

The Synod on Synodality, launched by Pope Francis in 2021, was the first to include lay people, and looked again during its final session at more than 80 reform proposals tabled in October 2023.

The final report contains 155 paragraphs, all approved by majority vote.

In a closing address, the Pope said that he had approved the document’s “highly concrete indications”, adopting them into his papal magisterium, and would not, therefore, publish a customary “post-synodal exhortation” of his own.

The report says that the Synod “resounded with enlightening testimonies” from 16 “fraternal delegates” from Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican traditions, and that ecumenism should extend to “the courage of fraternal correction in a spirit of evangelical charity”.

The RC Church should learn from the synodal practices of other denominations, and consider incorporating their witnesses and martyrs into its liturgical calendar, while also using next year’s 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea to seek a common celebration of Easter.

The synodal process will now continue into an “implementation phase”, the report says, as churches make “concrete changes” and “continue along the path of encounter, mutual understanding, and exchange of gifts that nourish the communion of a Church of Churches”.

Ten working groups from the Synod will continue deliberating until next June on topics such as “mission in a digital environment”, and “shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues”.

Commission reports on safeguarding. The close of the Synod coincides with the first report of a Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, formed in 2014, looking at safeguarding priorities across five continents.

The 50-page document identifies best practice and steps still needing to be taken, while urging increased transparency in data collection and highlighting continued imbalances in reporting provisions and support services for victims.