Dear brothers and sisters,

It is a joy for me to be with you in the Cathedral of Rome: the Pope is such insofar as he is Bishop of Rome, and I am with you as a Christian and as your Bishop. I thank the Cardinal Vicar for his words introducing this meeting, which I experience as a great embrace of the Bishop with his people.

I greet the members of the episcopal Council the parish priests, all the presbyters, the deacons, the men and women religious and all of you who are here representing the parishes. I thank you for the joy of your discipleship, for your pastoral work, for the burdens you carry and for those you lift from the shoulders of the many who come knocking at the door of your communities.

The word addressed to the Samaritan woman by Jesus, which we have just heard in the Gospel, in this difficult time in history, is now directed to us as the Church of Rome: “If you knew the gift of God” (Jn 4:10). To that weary woman, who arrives at the well at the hottest hour of the day, Jesus reveals that there is a living water that will quench thirst forever, a gushing spring that will never run dry: it is the very life of God given to humanity. This gift is the Holy Spirit, who slakes our thirst and irrigates our dryness, becoming light on our path. Saint Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, also uses the word “gift” to indicate the Holy Spirit, the creator Spirit capable of renewing all things.

Through the synodal process, the Spirit has inspired the hope of an ecclesial renewal, able to revitalize communities, so that they may grow in the evangelical style, in closeness to God and in the presence of service and witness in the world.

The fruit of the synodal path, after a long period of listening and exchange, was first and foremost the impulse to value ministries and charisms, drawing from the baptismal vocation, placing at the centre the relationship with Christ and the welcome of brothers and sisters, starting from the poorest, sharing their joys and sufferings, hopes and struggles. In this way, the sacramental nature of the Church is highlighted, which, as a sign of God’s love for humanity, is called to be a preferential channel so that the living water of the Spirit may reach everyone. This requires the exemplarity of God’s holy people. As we know, sacramentality and exemplarity are two key concepts in the ecclesiology of Vatican Council II and in the hermeneutics of Pope Francis. You will recall how dear to him was the patristic theme of the mysterium lunae, that is, the Church seen in the reverberation of the light of Christ, the relationship with him, the sun of justice and the light of nations.

Pope Francis, in the Note to accompany the Final Document of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (24 November 2024) wrote that it “contains indications that, in the light of its basic orientations, can already now be implemented in the local Churches and groupings of Churches, taking into account the different contexts, what has already been done and what remains to be done to learn and develop ever better the style proper to the missionary synodal Church”.

So, now it is up to us to set to work so that the Church that lives in Rome may become a workshop of synodality, capable – with the grace of God – of realizing “acts of the Gospel” in an ecclesial context where there is no shortage of challenges, especially with regard to the transmission of the faith, in a city that is in need of prophecy, marked as it is by many and growing forms of economic and existential poverty, with young people often disoriented and families often burdened. A synodal Church in mission needs to equip itself to adopt a style that values the gifts of each person and understands the function of guide as a pacifying and harmonious exercise, so that, in the communion inspired by the Spirit, dialogue and relationships may help us to overcome the many pressures towards opposition or defensive isolation.

Synodal dynamism must therefore be nurtured in the real contexts of every local Church. What does this mean in practical terms?

It means, first and foremost, working for the active participation of everyone in the life of the Church. In this regard, one tool for increasing the vision of the synodal and missionary Church is that of participatory bodies. These help the People of God to exercise fully their baptismal identity, to strengthen the bond between ordained ministries and the community, and to guide the process that goes from community discernment to pastoral decisions. For this reason, I invite you to strengthen the formation of participatory bodies and, at the parish level, to review the steps taken so far or, where such bodies are lacking, to understand what the obstacles are so that they can be overcome.

In the same way, I would like to say a word about prefectures, other bodies that connect different areas of pastoral life, as well as diocesan sectors themselves, designed to better connect neighbouring parishes in a given territory with the centre of the diocese. The risk is that these realities lose their function as instruments of communion and are reduced to a few meetings, where a few topics are discussed together and then everyone returns to thinking and living pastoral care in isolation, within their own parish boundary or according to their own mindsets. Today, as we know, in a world that has become more complex and in a city that moves at high speed and where people live in constant mobility, we need to think and plan together, going beyond pre-established boundaries and experimenting with joint pastoral initiatives. Therefore, I encourage you to make these organizations true spaces of community life where communion can be exercise, places of discussion where community discernment and baptismal and pastoral co-responsibility can be implemented.

And what are we called to discern today? What has been done in these years is valuable, but there are some objectives to be pursued with a synodal style that I would like to focus on.

The first that I suggest to you is to nurture the relationship between Christian initiation and evangelization, keeping in mind that the request of the Sacraments is becoming an increasingly less practiced option. Initiation into Christian life is a process that must integrate existence in its various aspects, gradually enable a relationship with the Lord Jesus, and make people confident in listening to the Word, eager to live prayer and to work in charity. If necessary, new tools and languages should be tested, involving families in the journey and seeking to move beyond a scholastic approach to catechesis. From this perspective, those who express a desire for baptism in adolescence and adulthood should be treated with delicacy and care. The offices of the Vicariate responsible for this should work with the parishes, paying particular attention to the ongoing formation of catechists.

A second objective is the involvement of the young and families, where we encounter various difficulties today. I believe it is urgent to establish a pastoral approach that is supportive, empathic, discreet, non-judgmental, welcoming to all, and offering paths that are as personalised as possible, tailored to the different life situations of those involved. Since families struggle to transmit faith, and may be tempted to shrink from this task, we must try to accompany them without replacing them, becoming companions along the way and offering tools in the search for God. We must honestly say that this is a pastoral approach that does not repeat the same old things, but offers a new apprenticeship; a pastoral approach that becomes like a school capable of introducing people to Christian life, accompanying them through the stages of life, weaving meaningful human relationships and, in this way, also having an impact on the social fabric, especially in the service of the poorest and weakest.

Finally – a third aim – I would like to recommend formation at all levels. We are living through a formative emergency, and we must not delude ourselves that it is enough to carry on with a few traditional activities to maintain the vitality of our Christian communities. They must become generative: they must be a womb that initiates into the faith and a heart that seeks out those who have abandoned it. In parishes there is a need for formation and, where there is none, it would be important to introduce biblical and liturgical courses, without neglecting issues that capture the passions of the younger generations but which concern us all: social justice, peace, the complex phenomenon of migration, care for creation, the good exercise of citizenship, respect in married life, mental suffering and addictions, and many other challenges. We certainly cannot be specialists in everything, but we must reflect on these issues, perhaps listening to the many skills that our city has to offer.

All this, I urge you, must be conceived and undertaken together, in a synodal way, as the people of God who, guided by their pastors, never cease to wait and hope that one day everyone will truly be able to sit at the banquet prepared by the Lord, according to the vision of the prophet Isaiah (cf. 25:6-10).

The Gospel passage about the Samaritan woman ends with a missionary crescendo: the Samaritan woman goes to her fellow citizens, tells them what has happened to her, and they go to Jesus and come to profess their faith. I am certain that in our diocese too, the journey we have begun and accompanied in recent years will lead us to mature in synodality, communion, co-responsibility and mission. We will renew in ourselves the joy of proclaiming the Gospel to every man and woman of our time; we will run towards them like the Samaritan woman, leaving our jug behind and carrying instead the water that quenches thirst forever. And we will have the joy of hearing many sisters and brothers who, like the Samaritans, will say to us: “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world” (Jn 4:42).

May the Virgin of trust and hope, Salus Populi Romani, accompany us and watch over our journey.

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Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 19 September 2025