3 Filipino priests tapped for Vatican synod meeting

Three Filipino priests will travel to Rome this month for a worldwide meeting of “listening, prayer, and discernment” as part of the ongoing Synod on Synodality.

Selected by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the clergymen will be part of a worldwide delegation of parish priests for the April 29 to May 2 meeting.

Msgr. Bernardo Pantin, CBCP Secretary General, said that the three priests are from the nation’s three major islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

They are as follows:

• Msgr. Joel Bruno Barut
  Vicar General, Diocese of Laoag
  Team Ministry Moderator, St. William the Hermit Cathedral in Laoag City
• Msgr. Marnito Bansig
  Episcopal Vicar for Clergy, Diocese of Maasin
  Vicar Forane, Vicariate of the Immaculate Conception
  Parish Priest, Holy Child Parish in Bato, Leyte
• Msgr. Julius Rodulfa
  Vicar General, Episcopal Vicar for Clergy, and Pastoral Director of the Archdiocese of Davao
  Parochial Vicar, San Pedro Cathedral Parish in Davao City

The priests’ names were submitted to the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod early last March.

Three hundred parish priests from around the world are attending the “Parish Priests for the Synod” meeting that will help shape the next synod assembly discussions.

The gathering is taking place at Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, about 30km outside of Rome.

The goal of the meeting, according to the Vatican, is “listening and valuing the experience of parish priests” and offering them “an opportunity to experience the dynamism of synodal work at a universal level”.

The Vatican said that initiative responds to feedback from participants of the first synod gathering in October 2023 that they needed to develop more ways to involve parish priests.

During the five-day meeting, the priests will participate in roundtable discussions, liturgies, workshops on pastoral proposals, and dialogue with experts.

The delegates will also meet Pope Francis and dialogue with him on May 2.

The results of the meeting will contribute to the working document drafted for the second session of the synodal assembly scheduled for October 2024. (Roy Lagarde/CBCP News)

A version of this article was first published by CBCP News.