In the years preceding the Great Jubilee of 2000, John Paul II held a series of continental synods to help the Church in different locales reflect on its distinctive situation at the end of the second millennium, and to plan for a future of evangelical vigor in the third. These Special Assemblies were easily named in the case of the Synods for Africa, Asia, and Europe. But when it came to the Synod for the western hemisphere, John Paul threw a linguistic curveball that made an important point.
It was expected to be called the Synod for the Americas. But at John Paul IIâ??s insistence, it became the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for America. As in America, singular. Why? Several reasons.
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