"You can't expect a specific answer to specific problems . . . This synod represents a moment when the church may examine its conscience, experience a renewal of faith in order to re-present God to a Europe that is thirsting for hope . . . a moment when the church can underline clearly that it can offer Europeans, notwithstanding that they are materially well-off and comfortable Europeans, a qualitatively better life through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord".
With those words, the Archbishop of Perugia, Dr Ennio Antonelli, in a Saturday news conference neatly summed up the workings of the Catholic Church's 19th Synod, the second special Synod for Europe, which officially opened in the Vatican last Friday.
Over the next three weeks, more than 170 synodal fathers come together for an eve-of-millennium synod which takes as its theme, "Jesus Christ, Alive in His Church, Source of Hope for Europe".
Keenly desired by Pope John Paul II, this second Synod on Europe will inevitably follow on from the workings of the first Synod for Europe, held in 1991 in the immediate aftermath of the fall of east-bloc communism.
If that first Synod on Europe was held in a climate of hope and amid a sense of new-found unity, this second one appears to take place against the backdrop of a hedonist, materialist Europe that seems ever more intent on rejecting both spiritual values and much of the church's teaching.
This synod will address itself to the problems of "building a new Europe" in the context of a continent, which despite its significant moves towards greater economic and political integration through the European Union remains scarred by problems that range from ethnic conflict (Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland) to social disintegration and rich-poor, West-East divides.
From the church viewpoint this synod takes place in the context of an increasingly secular Europe in which priestly vocations have dropped dramatically. Speaking in Poland in June 1997, the Pope touched on many of the basic themes of this synod when saying in a speech that is partially reproduced in the introduction to the synod's working document, the Instrumentum Laboris:
"Can we not say that after the collapse of one wall, the visible one, another, invisible wall was discovered, one that continues to divide our continent - the wall that exists in people's hearts? It is a wall made out of fear and aggressiveness, of lack of understanding for people of different origins, different colour, different religious convictions . . . Even the undeniable achievements of recent years in the economic, social and political fields do not hide the fact that the wall exists . . .
"The goal of the authentic unity of the European continent is still distant . . . and there will be no European unity until it is based on unity of the spirit. This most profound basis of unity was brought to Europe and consolidated down the centuries by Christianity with its Gospel . . .".
The beginning of this synod, like several of those before it, has been marked by a certain scepticism. One commentator pointed out during Saturday's news conference that there was not a single issue likely to be raised over the next three weeks - be it secularisation, consumerism, the crisis of the family, vocations crisis - that has not already been more than thoroughly discussed.
Has the Catholic Church anything new to say on issues on which its teaching is abundantly clear? Is the institution of the synod, keenly desired by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council, not self-contradictory in that it appears to function as a parliament within a church whose moral teaching, as pointed out by the Pope in the Encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, can "in no way be established by following the rules and deliberative principles typical of a democracy"?
Anticipating this objection, the synod secretary general, Cardinal Jan Schotte, denied in a press briefing last week that there was a contradiction between the principles of collegiality, as expressed by a synod, and papal primacy, adding that the synod has become an "established fact" in the life of the church. The "established fact" runs from now until October 23rd.