Bishop Michael Izen said holding a synod is a way for the Catholic Church to walk with the faithful.
Bishop Izen told “Practicing Catholic” host Patrick Conley in a program set to air at 9 p.m. March 14 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM, “The reason we have synods is to listen to the Church, to walk with (its members), to accompany them and really just want to do a better job of making Jesus Christ known and loved. We’re only going to do that if we’re walking with the people.”
Archbishop Bernard Hebda began walking with the faithful toward a 2022 Archdiocesan Synod Assembly by holding prayer and listening events across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis from 2019 to 2020.
Those sessions led to three focus areas for meeting the pastoral needs of the archdiocese: forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization, forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call, and forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.
Voting by about 500 people at the Synod Assembly and discernment by Archbishop Hebda led to the archbishop’s 2022 pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room” and concrete ways to implement certain priorities.
Efforts to implement the letter include a two-year emphasis beginning in July on helping and inspiring parents be primary educators of the faith to their children. Year one of implementation involved forming parish small groups in a model of relational evangelization, while year two has focused on the Mass and the Eucharist.
On the eve of Pentecost June 7, another Archdiocesan Synod Assembly of about 500 people will be held to help forge a way forward for the coming years by focusing on propositions that were not chosen during the 2022 assembly even while being open to the movement of the Holy Spirit.
Bishop Izen is leading a preparatory commission for Archdiocesan Synod 2025. The team consists of around eight people who are on staff at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center, volunteers and a professor from The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul.
“What he (Archbishop Hebda) wants for Synod 2025 is for it to have a very practical impact on our local Church,” Bishop Izen said. “(The pastoral letter) was one of the fruits of the first synod. … Those propositions that were raised in 2022, now we’re going to look at them again. We’re in year two, we’re moving into year three. What would year four and five look like? To choose the next propositions is basically the goal of that June 7 day.”
Bishop Izen explained that Synod 2025 is about continuing to grow in faith and unity and fulfilling concerns expressed by the faithful.
“We can’t really be great at evangelizing if we’re not listening to our people and vice versa,” Bishop Izen said. “We want them to be able to listen to us, but we have to listen to them as well. The challenge is educating not just the lay people but the priests as well. This is the way of being a Church.”
To hear more from Bishop Izen about what to expect from the synod process, tune into “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. March 15 and 2 p.m. March 16.
As part of the program, Kate Soucheray explains how the Catholic Church helps lead the faithful through messy lives into renewal. Also, Anoka County Sheriff Deputy Travis Wold explores how faith intersects with his career in law enforcement.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “Practicing Catholic” can be heard after it has aired at archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
