Georgetown Students Engage with Vatican and US Synod Leadership in Vatican Synod Hall

On Friday 18 October at 5 PM local time in Rome, more than 100 undergraduate and graduate students from 15 Catholic campuses across the US will engage in a conversation with leadership of the Secretariat of the Synod, as well as the United States Bishops Conference, from the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican. Students will sit at the now iconic roundtables in the Synod Hall and dialogue with Cardinals Jean-Claude Hollerich and Mario Grech, Sr. Nathalie Becquart, XMCJ, and Bishop Daniel Flores about the significance of synodality. The USCCB’s Synod Office will moderate the conversation, which will be livestreamed by the Vatican.

For a link to the livestream, visit www.synod.va/en.html.

The students are part of a grassroots initiative called CENTERS, which aims to cultivate the spiritual dispositions of and imagination for synodality within young leaders and future ministers of the Church in the U.S. Synodal collaborations like this are evidence of the institutional Church “making a preferential option for young people,” as hoped for in the listening stage of the synodal process, as well as fertile soil for receiving the fruits of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission in the U.S. landscape.

Many students have prepared for this historic encounter through coursework on synodality currently being offered at many participating institutions, as well as a week of programming on the ground in Rome. Most notably, two “synodal teach-ins” collaboratively designed by members of CENTERS’ 30-person leadership team will provide opportunities to discern together their questions for Church leaders. Encounters with Synod delegates throughout the week will further amplify students’ commitments to working together with Church leadership in walking the synodal path ahead.

Institutions participating in CENTERS represent a variety of global charisms in the Church – Augustinian, Cornelian, Ignatian, Lasallian and Marianist – as well as leading theologates and seminaries in the U.S.:

Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry
Catholic Theological Union
Georgetown University
La Salle University, Philadelphia
Loyola University of Chicago
Loyola University of New Orleans
Rosemont College, Philadelphia
Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia
Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University
Santa Clara Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministry
University of Dayton, Dayton, OH
University of San Francisco
Villanova University, Philadelphia
Xavier University, Cincinnati