Synod on Synodality: Spiritual Reflection Timothy Radcliffe
So: ‘Participation, government and authority: What processes, structures and institutions are needed in a missionary synodal Church?’
Luke, whose feast we celebrate today, tells us in Acts 15 about the so-called Council of Jerusalem called to face the first great crisis of the Church after Pentecost. The Church is profoundly fractured. First, between the Jerusalem Church and Paul, with his gospel of freedom from the law; Within the Jerusalem Church the convert Pharisees are divided from the rest, and the apostles led by Peter are probably divided from the ‘elders’ who looked to James, the brother of the Lord. So the Church faced a crisis of identity which exceeds anything we can imagine today.
Source: Vatican News
