In my previous essays on this topic (Part One here, Part Two here, Part Three here), I have referenced the various Worksheets included with the Instrumentum Laboris for the October Synod Assembly. I now offer this brief postscript.

Section B 2 is concerned with “Co-responsibility in Mission.” In this section is the question (B 2.4), “How can we properly value ordained Ministry in its relationship with baptismal Ministries in a missionary perspective?” Included in this section is a “question for discernment”: “How can we promote in the Church both a culture and concrete forms of co-responsibility such that the relationship between baptismal Ministries and ordained Ministry is fruitful? If the Church is wholly ministerial, how can we understand the specific gifts of ordained Ministers within the one People of God from a missionary perspective?”

Among the several suggestions for prayer and reflection is this one: “How is the ministry of the permanent diaconate to be understood within a missionary synodal Church?”

Would it not be prudent, appropriate, and wise to have deacons in the room for that prayer, reflection and discernment?