Re-Emergence of the Synod of Bishops in the Life of the Church
Historian, Giuseppe Alberigo, offers a good summary of the context within which the Synod of Bishops was re-born in our day:
“Pope John XXIII had decided that the first topic the Council would work on would be the liturgy. This was the aspect of the Church’s life in which renewal had already made the most progress, and the preparatory project for it was the only one that had found a consensus among the bishops, who had already been sensitised by the liturgical movement.