Cardinals attend a consistory to create 21 new cardinals at St. Peter’s square in The Vatican on September 30, 2023. – Pope Francis elevates 21 clergymen from all corners of the world to the rank of cardinal — most of whom may one day cast ballots to elect his successor. (Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP)
Oct 4 2023
Following a Mass to create the cardinals on Sept. 30, one of the new “red hats” and a synod member, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, said: “Being a synodal Church that knows how to listen to everyone is the way not only to live the faith personally but also to grow in true Christian fraternity.”
Reading a letter of thanksgiving, the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops said Pope Francis has “reminded us that it is necessary to learn to listen like the saints, like St. Francis of Assisi who listened to the voice of God, the voice of the poor, the voice of the sick, the voice of nature.”
“The beauty of the universality of the Church that will be manifested in the unfolding of the synod will be a very important sign, which will be able to speak of the mission that all of us baptized have received, in communion with the successor of Peter and in the profession of the same faith,” the 68-year-old U.S.-born cardinal said.
Six cardinals who are participating in this month’s synodal assembly — and five who are not — told CNA their ideas of, and expectations for, the Synod on Synodality.
Participating in the October assembly:
Cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio, archbishop of Bogota, Colombia
The synod is “a beautiful moment, a magnificent moment, a kairós, a time of salvation that can generate some fears in some environments, but I say ‘We must not fear.’ The Lord has told us ‘I am with you every day,’ and if we assume that promise of the Lord as a reality, as the Lord’s faithfulness accompanying us in life, he will accompany us,” he said.
Rueda recalled that the Holy Spirit is the protagonist of the synod and asked the laity around the world, as well as in Latin America, and “especially those who follow EWTN and ACI Prensa , to pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us and that we will be sensitive, deep, and willing enough to do the will of God, allowing ourselves to be guided by that work of the Spirit that always positively surprises us.”
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