Archdiocesan Synod 2020-2021
Below Archbishop Hebda announces the Archdiocesan Synod Focus Areas. CLICK HERE to read about the three focus areas.
Find out more at www.archspm.org/synod.
Who is Pax Christi’s parish representative?
Phyllis Olson, who is a Community Council member and the Worship Council Chair, is our parish’s Community Council representative to the LAB. Chris Kelly from St. Bonaventure is the LAB chairperson of our Deanery and Phyllis Olson is the alternate.
What is a Diocesan Synod?
The Synod is a coming together of the local church and is rooted in the Church’s history. It is a tool to help the bishop determine pastoral priorities and then to develop a pastoral plan for moving forward based on deep listening to the Holy Spirit through the faithful of the Archdiocese.
What is the Archdiocese’s Synod process?
The Synod will be a two-year process wrapped in prayer, faith-sharing and consultation. Beginning this fall there will be opportunities throughout the Archdiocese for prayer, catechetical and listening sessions. The goal will be to help us learn about being a listening Church and to listen to the Holy Spirit together. Twenty prayer and listening sessions will be available throughout the Archdiocese so that all of us will have an opportunity to participate. A session will be held at Pax Christi on Tuesday, January 28 from 6-9 p.m.
What is the role of the laity?
The archdiocese’s pre-synod process and the synod itself are designed to leverage as much input as possible from the laity. The prayer and listening events, parish consultation process and deanery consultation process aim to engage lay Catholics to share their perspectives and ideas. Lay Catholics will be among the official delegates at the synod.
Additionally, each parish has been asked to invite parish ambassadors to serve in the role of providing enthusiasm, knowledge, and representation in the parish’s preparation for Synod 2021. The parish ambassadors for Pax Christi are Sara Byerley, Sr. Mary Nick Eiden, Dale Nelson, Jim O’Laughlin, Dory and Roger Reddan, Angela Senander, and Brian Traxler. Jim O’Laughlin gave an explanation of the role of the parish ambassador in The Catholic Spirit - CLICK HERE.
What is the Lay Advisory Board? (LAB)
The lay advisory board (LAB) consists of representatives of parish pastoral councils across the archdiocese, chosen by their peers to represent one of 15 deaneries or geographic regions of the archdiocese. The chairs of each deanery meet quarterly with the archbishop and share results of those meetings with their deanery representatives and pastoral council leaders. They are a conduit for leveraging input from the laity about opportunities and challenges in the local Church. The LAB was created because Archbishop Hebda wanted a more diverse board for consultation and there hasn’t been a body representative of the laity for 16 years. The LAB will be a sounding board for the Synod, and for healing and expanding the pilot projects already in place.
What Deanery is Pax Christi in and who are the other parishes participating in the Lay Advisory Board from our deanery?
Pax Christi is in Deanery 15. The other parishes in our deanery that have an active parish council and are participating in the Lay Advisory Board are: St. Bonaventure and St. Edward’s in Bloomington, and St. Richard’s in Richfield. Each parish has a deanery representative that meets both before and after the meetings with the archbishop to share information both from and to their parish members.
Priest Advisory Board
The Archbishop has asked Fr. Mike Byron to serve as a representative on the Priest Advisory Board.