CV NEWS FEED // On Tuesday, the Vatican press office announced the names of synod delegates elected to serve on two key synodal commissions, the Commission for the Synthesis Report and the members of the Commission for Information. In addition to the elected members, Pope Francis also appointed members to the two commissions.
The Commission for Information, which the Vatican press office described as “taking care of the communication on the progress of the Synodal Assembly,” is composed of pontifical appointees Dr. Paolo Ruffini, Dr. Sheila Leocádia Pires, and non-elected (“ex officio”) members Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich SJ, Cardinal Mario Grech, Bishop Luis Maríb de San Martín, Sr. Nathalie Becquart, Fr. Giacomo Costa, Fr. Riccardo Battocchio, Dr. Matteo Bruni and Dr. Thierry Bonaventura.
Additional Commission for Information members, elected by the assembly, are Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph William Tobin of Newark, NJ, Bishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya from Cameroon, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David from the Philippines, Bishop Anthony Randazzo from Australia; Jesuit priest Antonio Spadaro and Fr. Khalil Alwan from Lebanon.
Cardinal Hollerich, the Archbishop of Luxembourg who is also the General Rapporteur for the synod, is the president of the Commission for the Synthesis Report.
According to the Vatican, the Commission for the Synthesis Report is tasked with “periodically supervising, amending and approving the preparation of the draft of the Synthesis Report with a view to its presentation to the Assembly.”
Ruffini, president of the Commission for Information of the Synodal Assembly, explained the process of drafting the synthesis report at a press briefing this morning: At the end of each module, each small group will produce a report and present it to the general congregation, resulting in 35 reports. The reports share what was “said, thought, or even the tensions… within the group, positions that may not be in agreement, so that the entire general congregation is informed about how the debate is evolving in the different groups.”
At the end of the general congregation on a given segment, everyone returns to their small groups.
There, they draft a report “on what they think they should say in terms of agreements, disagreements, proposals,” which is given to the secretary of the synod. The secretary will give it to the Commission for the Synthesis Report.
At the end of the synod, a full synthesis report will be drafted “by the experts, who have listened and who have put together what came from the congregations, and then it’s going to be brought back to the general congregation,” according to Ruffini.
The full synthesis report will be taken to the second assembly of the synod in October of next year.
Ruffini explained that the synthesis report “is a whole document which is aimed at ensuring that we share as much as possible, this process of discernment.”
He concluded: “I don’t know if I explained it in clear terms or not, it’s complex but it’s all based on the idea of ‘sharing’ and not of excluding anyone.”
The Commission for the Synthesis Report also includes regular (non-elected) members: Cardinal Mario Grech, current Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the Synod and Fr. Riccardo Battocchio, Special Secretary.
The members elected to the Commission for the Synthesis Report by the assembly are Cardinal Fridolin Ambomgo Besungu, O.F.M. Cap. from the Republic of Congo, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline from France, Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix of Canada, Bishop José Luis Azuaje Ayala from Venezuela, Bishop Shane Anthony Mackinlay from Australia, Bishop Mounir Kharallah from Lebanon and Fr. Clarence Sandanaraj Davedassan from Malaysia.
Pope Francis’ appointees to the Commission for the Synthesis Report are Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, Apostolic Prefect of Ulan Bator (Mongolia), Sister of Loreto Patricia Murray, Executive Secretary at the International Union of Superiors General, and Jesuit priest Giuseppe Bonfrate, President of the Faith and Culture Center Alberto Hurtado at the Gregorian University in Rome.
