Pope Leo XIV praises Francis’ Synodality legacy as a Church style, urges council to build on it at Vatican meeting.
Newsroom, June 27, 2024, Gaudium Press – Pope Leo XIV described synodality as a defining legacy of Pope Francis, calling it “a style, an attitude that helps us to be Church,” during a meeting with the 16th Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops on Thursday, June 26, 2025.
Speaking at the synod’s offices just outside the Vatican, where council members convened from June 26–27, Leo XIV addressed the group briefly before engaging in a question-and-answer session. The council, tasked with preparing and implementing the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, includes 17 members, with two notable non-bishop appointees by Pope Francis: consecrated woman María Lía Zervino, former president of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations, and Sister Simona Brambilla, MC, prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
“Pope Francis has given a new impetus to the Synod of Bishops, referring, as he has repeatedly stated, to St. Paul VI,” Leo XIV said. “The legacy he has left us seems to me to be above all this: that synodality is a style, an attitude that helps us to be Church, promoting authentic experiences of participation and communion.”
The pontiff highlighted Francis’ efforts to embed synodality in the Church through various assemblies, particularly the 2014 and 2015 synods on the family, which sparked debate over allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion following discernment with a priest. Francis’ later reforms permitted some in irregular unions to partake in the sacrament. Leo also noted the recent Synod on Synodality as a continuation of this vision.
Encouraging the council to build on Francis’ work, Leo XIV urged members to “gather the fruits that have matured” and engage in “forward-looking reflection” while preserving the Synod of Bishops’ institutional structure.
The council, chaired by the pope, includes notable figures such as Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, archbishop of Luxembourg and relator general of the Synod on Synodality, Cardinal Roberto Repole, archbishop of Turin, and Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas. Permanent synod secretariat leaders, including secretary general Cardinal Mario Grech and undersecretaries Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, OSA, and Sister Nathalie Becquart, XMCJ, also attended.
Opening the meeting, Cardinal Grech emphasized the secretariat’s role in supporting the synodal process without overshadowing local Churches. “I am convinced that it is the task of the General Secretariat of the Synod to accompany the synodal process with initiatives that help to develop the synodal and missionary dimension of the Church,” he said. Grech invoked the Holy Spirit to guide the council in discerning paths forward, noting that members were chosen as “credible interpreters of synodality” by the assembly.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from CNA
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