The 355 synod delegates with voting rights approved the final document by voting on each item on the 26th and submitted it to the Pope. The Pope decided not to write a follow-up recommendation for the synod but to release it immediately, as the document already contains “very specific guidelines” that will guide the Church's mission. It is a message to the church of a desire to walk together.
The motto of the Synod on Synodality is “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission” —“journeying together”.
Last year, Pope Francis, in the 57th Communication Sunday statement, commented on speaking with the heart: "It is the heart that moves us towards an open and welcoming way of communicating." This is the way to walk together.
"Communications, I want to focus on 'speaking with the heart'. It is the heart that spurred us to go, to see and to listen, and it is the heart that moves us towards an open and welcoming way of communicating. Once we have practiced listening, which demands waiting and patience, as well as foregoing the assertion of our point of view in a prejudicial way, we can enter into the dynamic of dialogue and sharing, precisely that of communicating cordially (formed with the word for heart in Latin). After listening to the other with a pure heart, we can also speak following the truth in love (cf. Eph 4:15).
The Pope, in his Statement last year, mentions how St. Francis de Sales, the Bishop of Geneva, in one of his most famous statements, "heart speaks to heart," inspired generations of faithful, among them Saint John Henry Newman, who chose it as his motto—Cor ad cor loquitur— (speak heart to heart). One of his convictions was: "To speak well, it is enough to love well."
At the end of his statement last year, the pope said it is terrifying to hear how easily words turn into warlike actions of violence. All belligerent rhetoric must be rejected, as must every form of propaganda manipulating the truth for ideological ends. What must be promoted is a form of communication that helps create the conditions for resolving controversies between people.
Last year also marked the centenary of St. Francis de Sales, who was proclaimed patron of Catholic journalists. We will never know how much influence the 'mass media' has on the world's citizens, but we all know it is not small. Toward the end of his message, the Pope expresses hope that people who work in mass media seek and speak the truth with courage and freedom and reject the temptation to use sensational and combative expressions.
