Begins next Sunday, in Rome: Five Canadian Bishops Participating in Synod on Eucharist

Friday, September 30 2005

(CCCB – Ottawa)… Pope Benedict XVI will preside at a Mass to open the 11th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, Sunday, 2 October 2005. The Synod will mark the end of a special year devoted to this theme as decreed by the late Pope John Paul II in October 2004.

The Synod is a meeting or assembly of bishops who gather in Rome in the presence of the Holy Father to reach a common consensus on pastoral orientations.

For the next three weeks, five Canadian bishops will join 300 Synod participants for the three-week reflection which will also be attended by Pope Benedict XVI, his first meeting of this kind since the beginning of his pontificate. The Canadian delegates are Most Reverend Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Edmonton; Most Reverend Paul-André Durocher, Bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall; Most Reverend Clément Fecteau, Bishop of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière; and Most Reverend Gerald Wiesner, O.M.I., Bishop of Prince George. Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec, has been personally invited by the Holy See to participate in the Synod.

In the first two weeks of the Synod, each participant will deliver a six-minute intervention. Each intervener may address a theme of his choice. The delegates are then divided into linguistic groups for the discussion phase when proposals are formulated. Following a process of amendments and suggestions, the approved proposals are forwarded to a post-synodal council constituted by the Pope. Following the Synod, work will begin on a papal document called an apostolic exhortation that will later be published.

Last week, at the annual Plenary Assembly of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), each Synod delegate presented a summary of his intervention to his brother Bishops who then gathered in workshops to comment on the texts.

The theme of the Synod is: “The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church”.

Canadian Bishops- Synod 2005
Most Rev. Clément Fecteau, Most Rev. Thomas Collins, His Eminence cardinal Marc Ouellet, Most Rev. Gerald Wiesner, O.M.I., Most Rev. Paul-André Durocher

For More Information Contact:
Sylvain Salvas
Director, Communications Service
Tel: (613) 241-9461
Fax: (613) 241-9048
salvas@cccb.ca