Flores (pictured) is a member of the global assembly's preparatory commission.

He says the Synod aims to share Christ and his Gospel more effectively. We can't respond with the Gospel if we don't know the reality people face, he says.

"We can't respond to the air."

He says the synod is designed to teach Catholics to speak with one another - not past one another..

"It's that basic ... Sometimes we're not even addressing the same issues, even though we're using similar words.

"There's a need to hear, think and pray, and hopefully the synod will suggest ... we can integrate certain ways by which respectfully things can be spoken without fear.

"The church can afford to be realistic about what people think - there's no need to be afraid of what people think," Flores says.

"There are voices in the church that are also the voices of our own history, of our own tradition, of our own previous experience — and that too has to be taken into account," he added.

"If we do this right … in our own local churches, we can develop a style of listening and decision-making that involves more hearing from people 'in the trenches,' ..." he says.

Issues of importance to the universal church are being discussed "ultimately so we can be effective in the missionary work of the church," he said.

"The communion of the church is at the heart of it — how we talk to each other, how we work together, how we listen to each other, how we make decisions in the local church and even the universal church" he said.

"There's a way to do that that is uniquely in keeping with the way of Christ, and that's what the synod will be asking about.

"It's really a 'how' question: How can we do this?"

Flores is also leading the US Bishops Conference on the synod process.

Source

• The Florida Catholic

Participants were also concerned about the division between US Catholics and their bishops.

They voiced a need for a welcoming church of "lived reality" for LGBTQ+ and laypeople rather than prioritising rules and regulations.

The report released on 19 September by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was prepared in advance of the Synod of Bishops called by Pope Francis with the theme - "For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission".

More than 700,000 participants joined listening sessions. The report said the documents "represent over 22,000 reports from individual parishes and other groups" that emerged from more than 30,000 opportunities to join the synodal process.

"The listening is an opening movement toward a wise discernment locally, regionally and nationally about what our deepest concerns, our deepest hopes are right now at this moment in time," Bishop Daniel E Flores (pictured) of Brownsville, Texas, who oversees the US synodal process.

Bishop Flores said the process of producing the 16-page synthesis report sent to the Vatican enabled people to respectfully listen to each other and develop a new understanding of what life in the church can be.

"It's an important step that gives us an experience as a local church," Bishop Flores said. "That's why I think it's always important to see that this is a seed that is planted and has a chance to grow. I think that's what the Holy Father is asking for us."

In a letter introducing the report, Bishop Flores described the document as "an attempt to synthesise and contextualise the common joys, hopes and wounds called forth with the help of the Holy Spirit in the unfolding of the synod".

"While not a complete articulation of the many topics and perspectives shared in the listening process, this synthesis is an attempt to express the broader themes that seemed most prevalent in the dioceses and regions of our country," he wrote.

"The synodal consultations around the enduring wounds caused by the clergy sexual abuse scandal, the pandemic, polarisation and marginalisation have exposed a deep hunger for healing and the strong desire for communion, community and a sense of belonging and being united," the national synthesis report said.

The next phase is to prepare a second draft for the Synod of Bishops in October 2023. The final document will be how synodality can be practised throughout the church.

Sources

Catholic News Service

The comments of Bishop Daniel E Flores of Brownsville, Texas, follow the May 24 rampage that left at least 19 children and two of their elementary school teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas.

"Don't tell me that guns aren't the problem, people are. I'm sick of hearing it," Bishop Flores tweeted May 25.

"The darkness first takes our children who then kill our children, using the guns that are easier to obtain than aspirin. We sacralise death's instruments and then are surprised that death uses them."

Texas authorities said an 18-year-old wearing body armour evaded police after crashing his truck near an elementary school close to the US-Mexico border and entered the school building at around noon armed with two assault weapons.

San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller comforted families who waited outside a local civic centre in Uvalde waiting for news of their loved ones.

"When will these insane acts of violence end?" the archbishop later said.

"It is too great a burden to bear. The word tragedy doesn't begin to describe what occurred. These massacres cannot be considered 'the new normal.'"

"The Catholic Church consistently calls for the protection of all life. These mass shootings are a most pressing life issue on which all in society must act — elected leaders and citizens alike," he said.

"We pray that God comforts and offers compassion to the families of these little ones whose pain is unbearable."

Chieko Noguchi, director of public affairs for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the organisation joined Archbishop García-Siller in prayers for the community.

"There have been too many school shootings, too much killing of the innocent. Our Catholic faith calls us to pray for those who have died and to bind the wounds of others," she said.

"As we do so, each of us also needs to search our souls for ways that we can do more to understand this epidemic of evil and violence and implore our elected officials to help us take action."

The Diocese of El Paso, Texas, suggested that a course of action from the Catholic Church could come "in findings ways to more effectively identify people at risk of such behaviour and push for reasonable limits to the proliferation of firearms."

From Rome, Pope Francis also weighed in, saying: "It's time to say 'Enough' to the indiscriminate trade of weapons!" and encouraged all to be committed in the effort "so that tragedies like this cannot occur again."

Sources

National Catholic Reporter