Catholic University of Linz founds department for synodality research
Synodality is on everyone's lips in the Catholic Church. A large-scale research project is now starting in Austria: internationally staffed and state-funded.
Linz (KNA) The Catholic Private University of Linz (KU Linz) has founded a research department on the topic of synodality. As the university announced on Thursday, the department will be affiliated to the Linz Institute for Pastoral Theology. Klara-Antonia Csiszar, who was a theological expert at the World Synod in Rome, will head the institute. Csiszar is Dean of the Linz Faculty of Theology and Vice Rector of the KU Linz.
Csiszar told the Catholic News Agency (KNA) on Thursday: "The idea of founding a research group came from our Institute for Pastoral Theology." Impulses from the World Synod, many lectures and various discussions motivated her and her team to found the group.
Mediation between Western and Eastern Europe
In an interview with KNA, Csiszar announced that the new research cluster would bring together Western and Eastern European perspectives on synodality. She plans that a 15-strong team of renowned academics and young researchers will work together there. The research group will meet for the first time in Linz at the beginning of February.
The work of the scientists should support the more synodal organisation of the church in Europe and the world. Close cooperation with pastoral training in the diocese of Linz is also planned. For example, the diocese's pastoral induction year is to be further developed into a "School of Synodality", said Csiszar. The research department is funded by the province of Upper Austria.
The topic of synodality includes, among other things, church structure and communication issues. Pope Francis has cultivated talk of synodality in the church. Most recently, an assembly of bishops and lay people took place in Rome with the World Synod, which discussed the problems and opportunities of synodality in the church.