Few surprises in the list of participants in next month’s Synod of Bishops on youth of vocation, which was published on Saturday. As is par of the course for such assemblies, the bulk of the delegates is elected by their own bishops’ conferences and the heads of the Curia departments. The pope chooses a number of delegates himself, as well as representatives from other churches and church communities and experts on the topic of the Synod.
As announced earlier, the Dutch and Belgian bishops have each chosen an auxiliary bishop from among them to go to Rome: Bishops Rob Mutsaerts and Jean Kockerols (pictured) respectively. A second Belgian bishop was chosen by Pope Francis, however, As in the previous Synod on marriage and family, Ghent’s Bishop Luc Van Looy will also take part in the proceedings. It will probably be his last major role on the world stage, as he will reach the age of 77 at the end of this month, and, on papal request, his retirement has already been postponed by two years. Pope Francis also chose a second Benelux bishop, who is not a member of any bishops’ conference. Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, who also serves as president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU, the COMECE.
The German bishops’ conference, being rather larger than those of Belgium or the Netherlands, have elected three bishops to represent them: Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau, Bishop Felix Genn of Münster and Bishop Johannes Wübbe, auxiliary of Osnabrück.
The Nordic bishops have chosen the bishop of Reykjavik, Msgr. David Tencer.
With two exceptions, all the cardinals in Pope Francis’ own selection of delegates are ones he created himself. Some have chosen to see this as Francis ‘stacking the deck’, but that is a nonsensical conclusion. Of course the pope sees potential in these cardinals, and wants to make use of their abilities, or he wouldn’t have made them cardinals in the first place.
In Caelo et in Terra 