Building the synodal church together

Final document drawn up by the Assembly "building the synodal church together"* in theNational assembly of the synodal network(Assisi, 22-23 February 2025)

The National Assembly "By building the synodal church together", promoted to Assisi on 22-23 February by the network of thirty associations, groups and communities gathered in 2021 to participate together with the synodal path of the churches in Italy, presents the proposals and the Reflections that emerged from the thematic tables in the hope that they are listened to and welcomed by the second synodal assembly.

1) Centrality of Jesus the Christ in the personal and community practice of the Gospel

Promote a pastoral con-vocation (based on the common baptismal vocation which is a diaconia-service), building in the daily life of community practice a church people of God, and favoring circularity, from institutional architecture to relationships, and the centrality of Jesus the Christ who exceeds all discrimination, violence and clericalism.

I underline the life-parola-Vita report, which helps to get out of "I" towards the "we" in the experience of biblical circles through the method of popular reading of the Bible, which can express itself in the celebrations of the word and the Eucharist.

Also consider as "signs of the times" the ministries established of women and men, loyal lame people, in the segments and in the bed, in the missionary breath of the word, in the sequence of Jesus the Christ and in the service of the people of God-Chiesa out .

Achoring firmly the approval to understanding the Word of God in the link with the life of a people, a community, etc.

2) Ecclesial and pastoral responsibility of women in the Church

Encourage a correct translation of biblical steps without manipulations filtered by a patriarchal vision.

Use an inclusive and non -sexist language in ecclesial documents, in homilies, catechesis and liturgy.

Developing initial and permanent training on gender issue in parish communities, seminars, in institutes of religious sciences and in theological faculties, guaranteeing the presence of theologians and the spread of their studies and research.

Enter the passages of the Scriptures in the liturgy that make the authoritative presence of women visible.

Open access to all ministries to women and men by virtue of the same baptism, which gives equal dignity.

Enhance the community experiences already underway, in which breaking bread and the word is experienced together by women and men, experiences to which the Church can draw on its path of search for more authentic languages.

Listening to the experience and thought of women on sexuality, recognizing their essential value for ecclesial reflection. This would also allow to definitively overcome the woman's denigration vision, matured over the centuries but extraneous to the Gospel message.

3) Vision of sexuality and presence of LGBT+ people

Fully recognize LGBT+ people in the Church and help parents so that the birth of a LGBT+ child is seen as a blessing, promoting at all ecclesial levels pastoral initiatives "with" the people involved and supporting (as long as necessary) the groups and associations of LGBT+people, their family members and pastoral operators who accompany them.

Organize diocesan listening and comparison tables (offices for families, etc.) and national to increase the knowledge of LGBT+ people and their families in priests and educate them to welcome them and accompany them without prejudice and dialogue.

Identify as psychological, spiritual and conscientious abuse and condemn without ambiguity any "reparative therapy" or "conversion".

Provide adequate tools for understanding LGBT+ to priests, communities, educators and catechists, and promote education for affectivity and sexuality also in schools, oratories and youth groups.

Spread the most updated biblical exegesis and theological reflection and enhance them in view of a decisive and clear updating of the doctrine about LGBT+people.

Eliminate from the communication of the Church every offensive expression towards LGBT+people, enhancing the vigils for the victims of Omotransfobic hatred and for overcoming any discrimination.

Prepare preparation and accompaniment paths for the same sex couples and a community liturgy of thanks for those who engage in a life project together.

Becoming space for care and protection for those who risk being victim of injustice, in particular for people with gender variance.

Here is the final document with the complete orthographic review, including the missing part:

4) Renewal of the celebratory methods

Retrieve and enhance the experiments that place the Sunday liturgy in the context of the small group and of the house as a domestic church, carried out in the multidagenial celebratory experience of the basic communities and the small parishes that celebrate in the absence of the presbyter.

Promote the creation of local liturgical groups that rethink the Eucharist starting from the awareness that it is celebration of the life donated, in which the assembly is the protagonist, adapting the spaces, symbols and songs to this dimension.

Recognize the authority of keeping the homily to secular and secular and promoting greater participation of the assembly in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the community reflection.

Stimulating the communities to express professions of faith that start from the collective experience of the meeting with Jesus, taking the opportunity of the 1700th anniversary of the symbol of Nicea.

5) Abuse of power, consciousness and sexual on vulnerable people

Rethinking the doctrine on sexuality and the ordered ministry: the aura of sacredness around consecrated ministers can legitimize abuse. The real problem is the structure of power of the Church and clericalism.

Ensure transparency through the establishment of an independent commission and free access to ecclesiastical archives, without prescription terms for abuse.

Provide compensation for the victims of abuse for physical, moral and economic damage.

Guarantee equal rights to workers and religious bodies.

Introduce permanent training to affectivity, corporeality and mutual respect, managed by neutral professionals.

Sensitize communities to co -responsibility in preventing and reporting abuses.

Implement prevention measures for power abuses in spiritual paths covered by secrecy (internal hole).

6) Commitment to peace, justice and integrity of creation

Put in the center education for nonviolence, understood as the attention to personal and global relationships.

Overcoming the centrality of sacrificial doctrine in the theology of peace and develop a deeper understanding of the economic and cultural causes of conflicts.

Abolish the Castrense ordinariate (military chaplains) and operate for disarmament policies, including adhesion to the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.

Push for the establishment of civil bodies of peace and promote international law through a reformed UN.

7) Relationship with the politics and secularism of the state

Promote formation to political commitment based on council and constitution, with the preferential choice for the last as a basic criterion.

Create an observatory on economy and inequalities to monitor tax, work and social security policies, and an observatory on democracy to study electoral laws and decision -making processes.

Overcoming the residues of confessionalism in Italian society, starting from the replacement of the confessional teaching of the Catholic religion in state schools with a secular and mandatory teaching of the history of religions.

8) Centrality of people impoverished in ecclesial life and presence of immigrant communities

Put the welcome of impoverished people at the center of the Christian community (for income, disability, genre, migration, sexual orientation, etc.).

Accept that the church is poor to follow the Gospel, where the poor is not an accessory, but the heart of the community.

Offer concrete spaces and support to the most vulnerable, providing structures of ecclesiastical property for reception initiatives.

9) Religious pluralism, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue

Practice and teach active ecumenism, recognizing the action of the spirit in all churches.

Open to Eucharistic hospitality as a sign that the Eucharist is the gift of God and not owned by a Church.

Create advice from local Christian churches and a national council of Christian churches.

Promote knowledge and interreligious dialogue within the Catholic Church.

10) Organization of Christian communities, decision -making processes in the Church, ecclesial ministries, transparency of finance and management of ecclesiastical assets

Overcome the rigidly hierarchical ecclesial model and encourage communities of participatory relationships.

Give legal identity to the communities and entrust the administration to lay and secular, lightening the role of the parish priest.

Mandatory parish advice with decision -making power, democratically elected.

Publish the budgets of parishes and dioceses, certifying them externally.

Renounce the non -expressed shares of 8 per thousand and reform the church financing system.

Involve the community in decisions on ecclesiastical assets, to be allocated to social purposes.

Rethink the role of the presbyter and open the ministry ordered to women.

Review the possibility of ordering likely viri and re -admitting suspended or dispensed priests for marriage.

Change the code of canon law to make it more functional to a synodal church.

Rethink (or abolish) the dicastery for the doctrine of faith.

February 23, 2025

*The Assembly "By building the synodal church together", was promoted by the synodal network to which they adhere: Adista, Emmaus Community Association, Ways of Hope, Italian Female-Lombardy Center, Interconfectional Center for Peace-Cipax, Basic Christian Community , Community of via Germanasca-Turin, coordination of 9 March-Milan, Italian theologian coordination, Constitution, Council and Citizenship-C3dem, Decapoli, women for the Church, Fraternity Arché, the lighthouse, the-Turin sheet, the Gibbo, the Gionata's tent, we are church, we are the change, order of Sorality, Pax Christi, for a different church, bridges to be built -Napoli, Preti workers, pro civitate Christiana, adult adult project LGBT, young Christian project LGBT, 3 painting, travelers.