PATHWAYS TO THE IMPLEMENTATION PHASE OF THE SYNOD
(July 2025)

In July 2025, the Vatican released a document offering guidance on the latest stage of the global synodal process launched by Pope Francis in 2021. The document sets out what’s required of dioceses in the run-up to a 2028 Vatican ecclesial assembly approved by Pope Francis weeks before his death and continued now by Pope Leo XIV.

“These Pathways, prepared by the General Secretariat of the Synod with the favourable opinion of its Ordinary Council and approved by the Holy Father Leo XIV, are part of the General Secretariat’s service of accompaniment during the implementation phase of the Synod. They have a twofold purpose. On the one hand, they aim to offer local Churches throughout the world a shared framework that will make it easier to walk together. On the other hand, they promote the dialogue that will lead the whole Church to the Ecclesial Assembly in October 2028, according to the following stages:

– June 2025 – December 2026: implementation activities in local Churches and their groupings;
– first semester of 2027: evaluation Assemblies in Dioceses and Eparchies;
– second semester 2027: evaluation Assemblies in national and international Episcopal Conferences, Eastern hierarchical structures and in other groupings of Churches;
– first four months of 2028: continental evaluation Assemblies;
– October 2028: Ecclesial Assembly in the Vatican.

You can read the document below:

250102—ENG-Pathways-for-the-implementation-phaseDownload

SYNOD ON SYNODALITY – FINAL DOCUMENT

The final document following the second Synod Assembly in Rome, October 2024 has now ben published in English. The work is the culmination of four years of consultation, starting in local parishes throughout over three thousand dioceses around the world in 2021.


“The Final Document of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops gathers the fruits of a journey marked by listening to the People of God and by the discernment of Pastors. The whole Church, allowing itself to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, was called to review its own experience and identify the steps to be taken to live communion, realise participation and promote the mission that Jesus Christ entrusted to the Church…”


To read more, download the Final Document here.

“…the purpose of this Synod is not to produce more documents. Rather, it is intended to inspire people to dream about the Church we are called to be, to make people’s hopes flourish, to stimulate trust, to bind up wounds, to weave new and deeper relationships, to learn from one another, to build bridges, to enlighten minds, warm hearts, and restore strength to our hands for our common mission” (Synod Preparatory Document)