Radcliffe, who serves as the spiritual adviser to the synod, also warned delegates not to speak negatively when they return home from Rome, quoting St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: “‘Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths’” (Eph 4:29).
Little has been made public regarding what will take place between the two synod assemblies.
Synod spokesman Paolo Ruffini has confirmed that the synod delegates attending this month’s assembly will be returning to Rome next year for the October 2024 synod assembly. Synod organizers have also said that a new Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, for the 2024 assembly will be written based, in part, on the synthesis document produced at the end of the 2023 gathering.
Radcliffe described the gap between the synod assemblies as “a time of active waiting,” noting that it will be “hard for many people to understand what we are doing.”
“When we go home, people will ask, ‘Did you fight for our side? Did you oppose those unenlightened other people?’ We shall need to be profoundly prayerful to resist the temptation to succumb to a party-political way of thinking,” he said.
“That would be to fall back into the sterile, barren language of much of our conflictual society. It’s not the synodal way. The synodal process is organic and ecological rather than competitive. It’s more like planting a tree than winning a battle.”