In a wide-ranging address to the permanent council of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi of Bologna said that synodality—“listening to each other, sharing responsibilities, seeking together how to serve our Churches”—is “part of the proclamation” of the Gospel, and “not its organizational premise.”
“The communion we live makes the word we address to others credible, generates and regenerates our decisive unity,” said Cardinal Zuppi, the episcopal conference president. “Unity does not serve to protect us from the world: it is a gift to reach it with the Gospel. “
The six subsequent sections of Cardinal Zuppi’s Italian-language address, delivered on September 21, were entitled “An announcement that is never disembodied,” “The testimony of Francis of Assisi,” “The relevance of the ‘spirit of Assisi,’” “The Rome Conference, Fifty Years Later,” “The school, the construction site of our common future,” and “End of life, no one is left alone!”