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Message from the General Secretariat of the Synod on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council

October 11, 1962 - October 11, 2022

The 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council is a particularly graced moment also for the Synod, which represents a fruit of this ecumenical assembly, indeed one of its «most precious legacies» (Francis, Apost. Const. Episcopalis Communio, September 15, 2018, 1). The Synodus Episcoporum, in fact, was instituted by Saint Paul VI at the beginning of the fourth and final period of the Council (September 15, 1965), in response to requests made by many of the Council Fathers.

The aim of the Synod was, and remains, to prolong the style of the Second Vatican Council in the life and mission of the Church, and to foster the living appropriation of its teaching by the People of God, in the awareness that the Council represented «the great grace from which the Church has benefited in the twentieth century» (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte, January 6, 2001, 57). This task is far from exhausted, for the reception of the conciliar magisterium is an ongoing process, in some respects still in its infancy...

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