Interview with Father Mauro Giuseppe Lepori, Abbot General Cistercian Order, at the joint UISG-USG meeting (November 22-24, 2023).

I myself participated in the Synod, I was a member of the Synod, so I had an experience of synodality. My greatest need is to deepen it. I felt that during the Synod itself, we were perhaps going a little too fast. There is a need to stop, to reflect, to deepen, and to deepen it also in the context of the consecrated life that I live, of our communities, of my order. 

Hope is something that is very necessary and apparently impalpable. I believe that walking together, having company, being accompanied on the path of life, of vocation or in confronting the problems, the dramas of life or of history, is what brings hope. It is like a flame of hope. We need to carry it, to protect it, with a better fraternal communion, walking together, listening to one another, to give it a place to survive and to be carried into the world, to be carried to others.

I belong to an order that is mixed, where we already live together, men and women, for example the General Chapter and all the structures of the government of the order and the life of the order, formation, etc. I believe that what we can bring to the table is a real contribution to the life of the order.

I believe that what we can bring to the whole Church is precisely this experience of a collaboration that is different, that is not homologated, but where both men and women, each sensitivity brings to the other this charisma.

Personally, I have seen that with the participation of the nuns, of women in the government of the order, we have moved from a tendency that was perhaps more political or of power in the management of problems to an attitude that is more of care, that is more truly synodal. Basically, we have moved from politics to synodality, from managing power to caring for situations and people. And this is the great contribution of women, who also bring out the charisms and gifts of men.