For a missionary and synodal church
Press release on the occasion of the publication of the Pope’s October Video
A few days before the opening of the synodal path (9-10 October 2021), Cardinal Mario Grech welcomes the publication of the Pope’s Video “Missionary Disciples” with which Pope Francis entrusts to the whole Church his prayer intention for the month of October.
“A synodal Church cannot be other than a missionary Church, because the mission necessarily starts with that dynamism of mutual listening which is the premise and condition for accepting what the Spirit is suggesting to the Church.” This is what the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Mario Grech, says in the communiqué released today by the World Pope’s Prayer Network, on the occasion of the publication of the October Pope’s Video.
The video testifies not only to the close link between a synodal church and mission, but also to the importance of prayer for the synodal process. “Only by praying and opening our eyes to all that surrounds us—as Pope Francis reminds us—will it be possible to perceive the action of the Spirit, which is already operative, and be a Church on the move, a missionary Church that avoids self-referentiality and is able to be for all people that ‘sacrament of care’ which the world needs so greatly.”
The video, which is released with the Logo of the Synodal Path, also marks the new and close collaboration of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops with the World Pope Prayer Network.
The communiqué of the World Pope’s Prayer Network on the occasion of the October Pope’s Video is attached.