Bishop Rhoades Opens First Diocesan Synod Since 1926
At Notre Dame, 150 delegates gather for two weekends of prayer focused on five themes for holiness amid a polarized age.
On Saturday, October 31, 2026, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades opened the first diocesan synod of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend since 1926 with a Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
The gathering runs over two weekends and brings together 150 delegates. The bishop likened the assembly to the Upper Room at Pentecost, where some 120 disciples gathered, according to the Acts of the Apostles. He invoked the diocese’s two co-patrons, the Immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Matthew, as present in spirit.
“We are not the protagonists of this Synod. The Holy Spirit is the protagonist,” Bishop Rhoades said. He recalled that the word synod “originates in Greek and means ‘walking together.’” Citing St. Paul’s call to be “of the same mind, with the same love,” he warned against a society “so deeply polarized” that even Christians are divided, and quoted St. Hildegard of Bingen: “The Holy Spirit is a burning fire of love that dissolves all our divisions.”
A Basilica and a Call to Holiness
The basilica, consecrated in 1888 by the second Bishop of Fort Wayne, Joseph Dwenger, is the diocese’s only minor basilica, a dignity conferred in 1992. It provided the setting for the opening liturgy and for the Mass of All Saints the following day.
At that Mass on November 1, 2026, during the synod, Bishop Rhoades stated that “the ultimate goal of our Synod is to produce saints.” He set out five major synodal themes: evangelization; catechesis; prayer and liturgical life; vocations; and outreach to the poor, the suffering, and the vulnerable.
In the same homily he recalled the teaching of St. John Paul II that “the saints have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult moments in the Church’s history,” and cited Léon Bloy: “the only real tragedy in life is not to become a saint.”
The published homilies offer no account of floor debates, votes, or final decrees. They present the bishop’s framing of a synod ordered to communion under the Holy Spirit and to the ordinary means of sanctification—Word, sacrament, catechesis, vocation, and charity—rather than to procedural outcomes alone.