Fr. Raymond J. de Souza: Postscript: Smoke From Amazon Synod Affects the Lungs of the Whole Church

GUEST EDITORIAL: The Pan-Amazon synod manifested a certain lack of ‘care for all the Churches’ in three ways.

By Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Catholic Register, 11/1/19

A venerable phrase kept occurring to me during the last days of the Pan-Amazon synod: sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarium. It means the “care for all the Churches” and refers to the governance of the entire Church universal. Had this necessary care for the welfare of the Church as a whole been sufficiently present, I wondered, throughout the synod’s controversial deliberations?

The Amazon synod, which closed Oct. 27, highlighted the need for all bishops to recover a fuller sense of their sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarium in the pastoral care of the entire flock of Christ. The governance of the Church universal is entrusted to the entire College of Bishops, which acts in two ways, according to Vatican II: through its head alone, the pope, and as a body united to its head, the pope.

Each individual bishop, therefore, has not only the care of the particular Church (diocese) entrusted to him, but participates in the sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarium, in the care for all the local Churches united in the one flock of Christ.  …..

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