11 October 1962 - 11 October 2022
The 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council is also a particularly graced moment for the Synod, which represents a fruit of that ecumenical assembly, indeed one of its «most precious legacies» (Francis, Apost. Const. Episcopalis Communio, 15 September 2018, 1). The Synodus Episcoporum was instituted by Saint Paul VI at the beginning of the fourth and final period of the Council (15 September 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 encourage the People of God to make living use of its teaching, 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, 6 January 2001, 57). This task is far from exhausted, for the reception of the conciliar magisterium is an ongoing process, in some respects even in its early stages...
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