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Synod on Synodality members ordered to observe perpetual secrecy about discussions
The Daily Knight
It now remains to be seen what information will actually emerge from the Vatican about the proceedings of the Synod.
Participants of the Synod on Synodality have been ordered to observe complete secrecy about everything they and others say during all the parts of the synod that are not shown on the Vatican’s YouTube channel.
In regulations issued to journalists on October 4, some 10 hours after Pope Francis officially initiated the synod’s 2023 meeting at a morning Mass, the General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops presented the rules for the event.
The regulations state that “each of the Participants is bound to confidentiality and privacy both with regard to their own interventions, as well as in regard to the interventions of other Participants.”
Such a rule of secrecy is for both during and after the synod: “This duty remains in effect even after the Synod Assembly has ended.”
Furthermore, all of the participants were explicitly banned from “recording, filming, and disseminating” the interventions and speeches made by synod members during the parts of the synod known as the “General Congregations” and “Minor Circles.”
As LifeSite has reported, the monthlong event will be divided into five modules, which in turn will be divided into a varying series of “General Congregations,” and smaller discussion groups of “Minor Circles.”
The General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, who is in charge of the synod, will coordinate with the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications to provide publicly available video streaming of the initial General Congregations of the first four modules – these discussions will simply be a presentation of the topics to be discussed by the synod members.
Defending the reason for such secrecy, the Vatican’s regulations stated that it was “in order to guarantee the freedom of expression of each and all regarding their thoughts and to ensure the serenity of common discernment, which is the main task entrusted to the Assembly.”
As for reports of the syno