Vatican officially names Archbishop Miller to Synod

It’s official. Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller is one of four Canadian bishops named as delegates taking part in the upcoming Synod on Synodality taking place in October. 

Although Archbishop Miller was expected to be taking part in the fall gathering, it was only Friday that the Vatican officially published the full list of participants who will take part in the synod. 

Archbishop Miller will be joined by fellow Canadian delegates Bishop William McGrattan of Calgary, Bishop Raymond Poisson of Saint-Jerome-Mont-Laurier, and Auxilary Bishop of Quebec Marc Pelechat.

Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet will be among the cardinals nominated by the Pope to attend the synod assembly.

Nearly a third of the 364 voting delegates in the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops were chosen directly by Pope Francis, including the American Jesuit Father James Martin, a frequent commentator on LGBTQ outreach; former prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, and Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago.

For the first time, laypeople will not only participate in the Synod of Bishops assembly, but they also will be full members with the ability to vote on a final document at the end of the process in October 2024.

During the nearly month-long Vatican assembly, the delegates will discuss questions posed in the recently released Instrumentum laboris, which covers such hot-button topics as women deacons, priestly celibacy, LGBTQ outreach, and highlights a desire for new institutional bodies to allow for greater participation in decision-making by the “People of God.”

The 50-page text also outlines a “synodal method” of spirituality focused on listening to the Holy Spirit and “discerning the signs of the times” and calls for new formation programs to train candidates for ordained ministry “in a synodal style and mentality.”

More than 50 women will be participating as voting members in the synod assembly scheduled for Oct. 4-29 at the Vatican. Among them is Nicaraguan Sister Xiskya Valladares, known as the tweeting nun, who is a professor and journalist based in Spain and is a co-founder of iMision, an organization seeking to support the presence of the Church in the digital world.

Among the lay delegates selected by the Pope are Americans Cynthia Bailey Manns, the director of adult learning at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Wyatt Olivas, a young adult musician from Cheyenne, Wyoming. The lay delegates from Europe include Enrique Alarcón Garcia, president of the Spain-based Christian Fraternity of Persons with Disabilities.

Jesuit Superior General Arturo Sosa and Sister Elizabeth Mary Davis, RSM, are among the delegates representing religious orders.

Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, a prominent British theologian who has drawn criticism from some for his statements on homosexuality, is listed as a spiritual assistant, a non-voting position in the Synod on Synodality. Radcliffe, who served as master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001, will also lead a three-day retreat for all of the synod participants ahead of the assembly.

In a change from recent synods, Pope Francis has broken the general assembly into two sessions, one to be held in October 2023 and the second in October 2024.

According to Cardinal Mario Grech, the head of the Vatican’s synod office, conclusions will be reached only after the second session in 2024. At the end of the first session this year, the synod leadership will propose to participants some ideas for what to do in between the two sessions.

The Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality has been underway since October 2021. At the end of the process in 2024, synod assembly participants will vote on an advisory final document that will be presented to the Pope, who can decide, if he wishes, to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own at the conclusion of the synod.

Pope Francis has said that he sees the Holy Spirit as “the heart of synodality.”

“The synod now taking place is — and should be — a journey in accordance with the Spirit, not a parliament for demanding rights and claiming needs in accordance with the agenda of the world, nor an occasion for following wherever the wind is blowing, but the opportunity to be docile to the breath of the Holy Spirit,” the Pope said.

Jonathan Liedl of the National Catholic Register, Andrea Gagliarducci of CNA, AC Wimmer of CNA Deutsch, EWTN Rome correspondent Rudolf Gehrig, and freelance writer Rachel Thomas contributed to this story, which includes B.C. Catholic files.