SW News:

For the first time, laypeople have been included in the list of participants in the upcoming Synodal Assembly in October. Out of the plus participants, 21 percent comprise laypersons, including Professor Anna Rowlands, a theologian associated with Durham University in Britain. 

Among those attending the series of meetings in the Vatican are patriarchs of the sui iuris Oriental Churches, presidents of international organizations of bishops and religious, members of the Roman Curia and delegates representing bishops’ conferences. Among the participants are 57 cardinals, including Cardinals Luis Ladaria Ferrer and Gerhard Muller, former prefects of the Dicastery for Faith. 

From around the world, 23 auxiliary bishops are taking part in the sessions. Fifty delegates have been directly appointed by the Holy Father. They comprise Sister Xyskya Valladares, a Nicaraguan nun who is active in the social media apostolate in Spain; Fr Antonio Spadaro, editor-in-chief of La Civilta Cattolica, Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada, who was the former prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops; Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston in the United States and American Jesuit Fr James Martin, who is a controversial figure for his support of the homosexual movement. 

Thirty-seven nuns are also taking part in the deliberations and some of the prominent names include: Sr Nathalie Becquart, General Undersecretary of the Synod; Sr Maria de los Dolores Palencia, who is closely associated with the Latin American episcopal conference; Sr Maria Luisa Berzosa Gonzalez, a Spanish religious who is well known in Argentina as the promoter of the Fe y Alegria Schools; Sr Leticia Salazar, the chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernadino in California; and Sr Rosemary Castaneda Montoya of the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation. 

The German Bishops’ Conference has opted to send three vocal supporters of the controversial German Synodal Path—Bishop Georg Batzing of Limburg, Bishop Bertram Meier of Augsburg and Bishop Franz Josef Overbeck of Essen. On the other hand, the  Holy Father has handpicked Bishop Felix Genn of Munster and Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau to take part in the synodal sessions. The latter is one of the four prelates who are blocking the financing of the German Synodal Path. 

The American participants include Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Ordinariate, Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville near the Mexican border, Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester who is well known for his Word on Fire apostolate and Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, who is one of the promoters of the Eucharistic Revival across the United States.