Resources

Best practices

Click here to share your best practices in ministry to help other pastors, staff, and parish pastoral councils work with their parish communities

Welcome, Hospitality and Outreach

Background information

The Archdiocesan logo of the Synod displays the years 2021 to 2024 with a group of people at the bottom. The words "For a Synodal Church" is displayed at the bottom. Underneath it, the words "Communion, Participation, Mission" are displayed.

On May 21, 2021, Pope Francis surprised the Church by announcing that the Synod of Bishops, postponed due to the pandemic, will be preceded by a synodal process that includes “listening to all of the baptized” in every local diocese as the bishops, along with laity and religious, gather in 2023 and 2024.

The Archdiocese of Newark has joined dioceses throughout the world in a three-year process of listening to and walking with its parishioners. Two significant questions posed by Pope Francis are “How are we walking together as a Church?” and “What is the Holy Spirit asking of the Church in the 21st Century?”

Parishes of the Archdiocese prayed and discerned about their experience and ways the Holy Spirit is asking the Church to spread the Gospel message of Jesus today.

Pope Francis continues to invite the entire Church and those on the peripheries to reflect on a theme that is decisive for its life and mission as he says. “It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.”