Following a two-year period of preparation, the first session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops opened on October 4 with Mass in St. Peter’s Square, an Italian-language greeting by Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Sedrak, an unpublished greeting by Pope Francis, and an Italian-language report by Cardinal Mario Grech, before the longer introductory talk delivered by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ.