What about the Synod? Card. Ryś wants non-Catholics on the Archdiocese Council of Lodz

The appointment to the diocesan council of representatives of “other churches” is simply a change that Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś plans to introduce. As he says, it is the fruit of the Synod about Synodality.

On Sunday, November 10th, a synod gathering was held in Łódź with the participation of the Metropolitan of the Archdiocese there, Cardinal Grzegorz Rys and prof. Alexander Banka, a European delegate to the Synod on Synods in Rome. As part of the meeting, both spoke about their experiences with the Roman Synod; the evidence of their speeches was published on the YouTube channel of archdiocese.

Among another things, Cardinal Ryś addressed the issue of ecumenism. He stated that there was very small talk about this in the preparatory material for the Synod Session in Rome. He so decided to take the level and present his perspective. In the proposal for a final document, he found nothing of what he proposed on the subject of "reciprocal exchange of gifts" in the framework of the ecumenical dialogue. However, he found something he did not take, and what he found very helpful – the thought of inviting to the Archdiocese pastoral council... non-Catholics. As he said, he immediately made a note saying, “invite another churches to the pastoral diocesan council.” Now he wants to do it in practice.

– I would like to invitation representatives of another churches to the diocesan council. We don't have them yet. [...] I think I will do it soon, even if it will require any legal, statutory changes, it is all to do – he said.

As he added, this thought never occurred to him before.

Cardinal Ryś began the synodal process in the Archdiocese of Łódź with a “ecumenical” gesture. Marek Izdebski, a associate of the community “An Evangelical-Reformed Church”, was active in the beginning of the trial in 2021. Izdebski was asked by Archbishop Rys to tell about the synodical strategy of his community. The faithful may have heard that the concept of “power” in the Church “does not correspond to the spirit of the Gospel.” Therefore, in the evangelical communities, everything is based on synods, which in democratic voting elect executive bodies and indicate what these bodies are to do; Marek Izdebski pointed out that although he has a function which is referred to as a bishop, there is no peculiar authority, due to the fact that in fact everything is simply a synod.

Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś has not yet revealed who will sit on the diocesan council in Łódź; the decision on the very fact of the appointment of a non-Catholic has seemingly already been made.

Prof. Aleksander Bańka pointed out that 1 of the circumstantial fruits of the synod in Poland may be reforming various bodies, specified as pastoral or economical councils in parishes. – If we were to improvement anything after the synod, we would improve the way these bodies function, so that it would be more effective in relation to what synodality invites us to do – he said. According to Prof. Bańka, all specified councils should act on a "synodal" way, that is, in the position of listening to each other's differences.

Earlier on, the auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Warsaw-Praska, Jacek Grzybowski, who participated in the synod session in Rome, spoke about a akin project. At a later press conference, he pointed out that specified advice should be revived. In his own diocese, even a peculiar statute was prepared and an work was introduced to appoint a pastoral and economical council in each parish.

Source: PCh24.pl

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