Implementation team will help bring Synod process to fruition

In the wake of the Archdiocesan Synod June 3-5, which followed a three-year preparation process, an Office of Synod Implementation will help Archbishop Bernard Hebda, pastors and parishes bring the Synod process to fruition.

“We had this beautiful experience over the past three years,” Archbishop Hebda said. “Now we have to make it concrete.”

In addition to programmatic elements, one of the office’s main tasks will be to “help us remain faithful not only to the Synod process, but to its spiritual character,” he said.

Archbishop Hebda recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley to describe the work of the Synod implementation team.

Deacon Joe Michalak is transitioning from his role as director of the Institute for Diaconate Formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul to a full-time position as director of the Office of Synod Implementation. Bishop Joseph Williams, Father Joseph Bambenek, who has been closely involved throughout the Synod process, and Father Michael Becker, pastor of Sts. Joachim and Anne in Shakopee, will also be involved with Synod implementation, as will Jeff Cavins and Kelly Wahlquist from the Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute in St. Paul.

A priest advisor group, theological advisory group and many of the people involved with the Synod process to date will also help moving forward, Archbishop Hebda said. And the work will be supported by prayer teams, he said.

Pastors will be an important focus for the Synod implementation team, Archbishop Hebda said, as parishes assemble their own implementation teams. Each pastor is asked to discern those people with “a missionary bent that will help us to do this work,” he said. The Synod implementation team is also helping prepare the archbishop’s pastoral letter and providing ideas on assimilating it into the life of parishes.

The Synod’s three focus areas were: Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization, forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’s love and respond to his call, and forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young. Archbishop Hebda is expected to publish a pastoral letter about the Synod’s implementation Nov. 20, the feast of Christ the King.

“I’m hoping that, as we roll out the pastoral letter and our plans for Synod implementation, that the people in the pews, and especially those who participated in the parish process, are going to be saying, ‘Oh, this is indeed what we were talking about,’ and that this is a reasonable and well-discerned path for moving forward on those points,” Archbishop Hebda said. “There should be some connection with what we’ve done over these last three years, but also moving from just the realm of the theoretical to something that’s very practical, that helps us at the archdiocese.”

Using one example of a focus area brought up during the Synod process — the importance of youth and young adult ministries — Archbishop Hebda said “we’re going to have successful Synod implementation if, in fact, we’re able to begin to move the dial a little bit on how it is that we not only engage youth and young adults, but how we get them to stay in the pews and how we engage them to be missionaries not only to their peers, but also to the rest of the Church.”

To hear more details about Synod implementation, tune in to this episode of the “Practicing Catholic” show 9 p.m. Sept. 16, which repeats at 1 p.m. Sept. 17 and 2 p.m. Sept. 18 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM. To stay updated on the Synod implementation, visit archspm.org/synod.

Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with Emily Albrecht from the Equal Rights Institute and former co-president of “Oles for Life” at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, who offers tips and tricks for responding to pro-choice arguments with love; and Father John Floeder, director of the propaedeutic year and director of human formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, who describes a day in the life of a new seminarian.

Listen to interviews after they have aired at PracticingCatholicShow.com or choose a streaming platform at anchor.fm/practicing-catholic-show.