Selected African Catholic Scholars to discuss “agenda for Vatican III” from Thursday

CANAA || By Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla || 13 July 2015

A community of selected African Catholic scholars will be gathering at the Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations (HIPSIR) in Nairobi this Thursday for a three-day conference under the theme, “An Agenda for Vatican III: Ideas, Issues, and Resources from Africa or the World Church.”

The conference is the third and final gathering of the three-year research program dubbed the Theological Colloquium on Church, Religion, and Society in Africa (TCCRSA), “aimed to develop, model, and sustain a new and innovative methodology and process of theological reflection, research, and study at the service of the African Church and the World Church.”

According to the conference booklet availed to CANAA on Monday by the convener of the colloquium, the Principal of the Nairobi-based Jesuits’ Hekima University College, Father Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, the expected participants represent the African continent in its main linguistic diversities (English, French, Portuguese, and Arabic) and traditions (Ethiopian Christians, Egyptian Coptics and African).

The booklet lists the 36 participants expected at the Conference, two guests, and four translators.

“The colloquium aims for a pan-African participation and representation of linguistic (French, Portuguese, and English speaking), gender (women and men), geographical (North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa: east, west, central, and south), generational (established theologians and young/new scholars), and ecclesial (laity, religious, clergy, and bishops) composition,” the conference booklet reads, adding African theologians in the Diaspora among the participants.

The third TCCRSA, which will conclude on Saturday, was scheduled to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the conclusion of Vatican II that took place from 1962 to1965.

Through forums for conversation, listening, presentation of commissioned papers and responses, and joint working/research sessions, participants will reflect on various topics, among them, imagining the Church of Vatican III, ecology and soteriology, the clash of religions and the future of humanity, pressing and contested ethical and moral issues with African perspectives, the gospel of family in Africa and the Pope “Francis effect” and how it translates in Africa.

The first TCCRSA took place in 2013 under the theme “African Theology in the Twenty-First Century: Identity and Profile, Contexts, and Models” and its reflections published in the book titled Theological Reimagination: Conversations on Church, Religion, and Society in Africa, available at the Paulines Bookshops in Nairobi.

“The Church We Want: Theological Voices from Within and Outside the Church at the Service of Ecclesia in Africa” was the theme of the second TCCRSA, which took place in August 2014.

The reflections of this colloquium were compiled in the book, The Church We Want: Foundations, Theology and Mission of the Church in Africa Conversations on Ecclesiology, edited by Father Orobator, Agbonkhianmeghe and published by Paulines Publications Africa, 2015, in Nairobi.