Vatican City, Sep 25, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The Vatican published this week-end the full list of the special auditors invited as "audiutores Secretarii specialis" (or experts) and “auditors”(auditors) for the forthcoming Eleventh General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, that will take place in October. Among them are representatives of English-speaking congregations and lay associations such as Carl Albert Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Order of the Knights of Columbus, and Fr. Francis Moloney, S.D.B., of the department of biblical studies at the Catholic University of America, Washington.
Along with the 57 invited as observers and experts are also Fr. Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy and sacramental theology at the "Regina Apostolorum" Pontifical Athenaeum, Rome. Msgr. Peter John Elliott, director of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family in Melbourne, and member of the International Council for Catechesis, Australia
Six Latin-Americans were invited, two priests and four lay. Fr Manuel Gonzalez from Mexico, professor of Theological Anthropology at Faculty of Theology in Mexico, Father Ignacio Gramsch Labra, parish vicar of San Luis Beltran de Pudahuel in Santiago de Chile; archdiocesan assessor for the pastoral care of acolytes, Chile; Leonardo Casco, president of the "Alianza para la Familia," Honduras; Martha Lorena Casco, president of the "Comite por la Vida," Honduras; Moyses Lauro De Azevedo Filho, founder and moderator general of the Shalom Catholic community, Brazil; Luis Fernando Figari, founder of "Sodalitium Vitae Christianae", Peru.
These special auditors, are invited along with the Cardinals and Bishops which names were announced two weeks ago by the Vatican. Together they will meditate on the following theme : “The Eucharist source and summit of the mission of the church.” The Synod will mark the end of the Year of the Eucharist, an initiative of late Pope John Paul II.