After the listening process, which collected the voices of the Churches individually, the General Secretariat in Rome will draw up a summary before the end of October. Subsequently, a continental consultation will be held on this document. Some Asian theologians will participate in the commission in charge of drafting it. At the end of March 2023, a synodal meeting of the Churches of Asia will be held in which not only bishops will participate, but also priests, laity and religious.
Rome () – Last week in Rome, the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops took stock of the progress made in the first year of the synodal listening process convened by Pope Francis. Focused on the theme “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission”, the listening process will see the convergence of reflections from Catholic communities around the world at the Assembly that the pontiff will preside over in Rome in October 2023.
As scheduled, on August 15 the first phase was closed, that of listening to the people of God in the particular Churches and community discernment at the national level, entrusted to the different Episcopal Conferences. According to the data released, more than 100 of these syntheses have already been prepared, to which must be added those of the Vatican dicasteries, those of the Unions of Religious and Religious. And also -according to Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa, consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod- “about 800 observations that came directly to the Secretariat, sent by people and groups from different parts of the world, as well as documents that collect the fruit of seminars and encounters.” In this wealth of voices that continue to arrive at the Vatican there are also those from Asia. For example, there are Episcopal Conferences, which have made their summaries known by publishing them on their web pages, such as that of Japan and the bishops of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Secondly, the Latin rite churches of India held a special national meeting in Bangalore in recent weeks.
At the press conference on August 26, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod, explained how they will continue the work, which foresees a second phase at the continental level. “The Secretariat,” he explained, “could have directly elaborated a synthesis that would have been the Instrumentum Laboris for the assembly phase to be held in Rome. However, it was preferred to include a new debate at the local level, on an intermediate document”. “With the inclusion of a continental level”, commented Grech, “an attempt is still made to guarantee that the consultation of the people of God is respected. It is an additional level of discernment, which should not be reduced to the celebration of an ecclesial assembly: the principle of circularity must be realized through an act of restitution to the particular Churches. There the consultation took place, and there the document returns.”
From the operational point of view, the “Document for the Continental Stage” – which will be ready at the end of October – will be drafted by a group of 25 experts coordinated by Father Costa. It also includes several theologians from Asia and the Middle East: the Lebanese Souraya Bechealany, director of the Research Center of the Faculty of Religious Sciences, Gaby Alfred Hachem, professor at the University of the Holy Spirit in Kaslik (Lebanon), the Korean dogmatic theologian Teresa Choi, from Sogang University, Singaporean Christina Kheng, professor at the Institute of Pastoral Ministry of East Asia, the Syro-Malabar Indian theologian Fr. Thomas Kollamparampil, professor at the Dharmaran Vidiya Ksheteram Pontifical Athenaeum in Bangalore, and the Sri Lankan Redemptorist theologian P. Vimal Tirimanna, professor at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome.
Once prepared, the “Document for the continental stage” will be delivered to the Churches of each continent for examination. From this document, the assembly at the local level must prepare a new contribution, which will be sent to the general secretariat of the Synod before March 31. The Council of Catholic Patriarchs of the East (CPCO), an organization that brings together the Churches of the Middle East, has already established that this meeting will be held from February 12 to 18 in a place to be defined. As for the meeting of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), the date of the meeting has not yet been defined. In any case, it will be intertwined with the path that emerges from the work of the General Conference for the fiftieth anniversary of this body. To this end, after the solemn inauguration last Monday, a celebration will be held in Bangkok, from October 12 to 30. And by the way, Pope Francis has already announced that Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle will attend and represent him as his pontifical legate.
“All the continental Assemblies”, specified the General Secretariat of the Synod, “must be ecclesial Assemblies (of all the people of God) and not only Episcopal Assemblies (only of bishops). Therefore, the participants must adequately represent the variety of the People of God: bishops, priests, deacons, men and women religious, lay men and women. It is the first fruit of the ongoing synodal process, insofar as it responds to the desire of the majority of the episcopal conferences consulted on the subject”.
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