The Vatican released the names of members of two commissions charged with assisting the leaders of the Synod of Bishops’ general secretariat in reviewing documents, drafting resources and developing best practices.
According to the synod we-bsite, the theological commission and the methodology commission will include religious and lay experts from around the world.
The theme chosen by the pope for the next synod is: “For a synodal church: communion, participation and mission.”
Cardinal Mario Grech, se-cretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, told Vatican News in May that, although originally scheduled for 2022, the synod will take place in October 2023 to allow for broader consultation at the diocesan, national and regional level.
In revisions to the synod process announced in May, Pope Francis has asked that it begin with consultations with laypeople on the diocesan level before the discussion and discernment moved to a national level and then the 2023 synod assembly itself.

For Father Stephen Hilgen-dorf, it has been a long journey from his role as a priest in the Anglican tradition.
It included a desire to be in full communion with the Catholic Church that was so strong he was willing to give up ministry altogether. But God had other plans for him. He and his family were received into Catholic Church, then some years later he was accepted to become a Catholic priest.
After studying, working and ministering in the Twin Cities the past six years, he was ordain-ed a priest for the Houston-based Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter June 29. His next assignment will be in Omaha, Nebraska. The ordinariate is equivalent to a diocese for Roman Catholics who were nurtured in the Angli-can tradition. Created by the Vatican Jan. 1, 2012, it serves Catholic parishes and communities across the United States and Canada.
“I had to come to grips with the thought, ‘I may never be a priest again,’” Hilgendorf, 33, said after his ordination. “After becoming Catholic, I found it very difficult going to Mass. I was not sure who I was any-more.”

As Iraqis sort through the rubble of the latest terrorist attack Tuesday, an attack on a busy market in downtown Baghdad that left at least 30 people dead, one Catholic priest in Iraq says it’s important not just to focus on the horror of life in the country but also the hope. As it happens, the bombing came four days after 70 children received their first communion in the city of Telskuf in the Nineveh Plains, a region in northern Iraq that borders with the Kurdistan region, and which was invaded by IS in 2014.

The register of damaged and ruined church buildings of Russia has almost 4 thousand objects already, the website of the Moscow Patriarchate reported on July 1. At the same time, it was noted that, according to the total estimates of the diocesan tree keepers, about a thousand churches have a high risk of collapse in the next decade.
Two years ago, the Supreme Church Council approved the concept of creating an electronic and digital archive for all ruined churches in a short time.