Synod on Family a Major Interest of African Catholic Scholars at the Just Concluded Colloquium

CANAA || By Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla || 20 July 2015

The just concluded theological colloquium on Church, religion and society in Africa (TCCRSA), which brought together selected African Catholic Scholars, saw participants exhibit much interest in the Synod of Bishops on the Family slated for October 4-25, 2015.

Participants drawn from different linguistic and geographical regions of the continent as well as gender, generational, and ecclesial diversity have been gathering in Nairobi for the last three successive years in discussions “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.”

“I was pleasantly surprised by the great interest in the Synod of Bishops on ‘Family and Marriage’ to take place in Rome in October, 2015,” Father Joseph Healey of the Maryknoll Society who has participated in all the three conferences told CANAA on Monday in reference to the colloquium that concluded on Saturday.

The October Synod of Bishops will schedule discussions on topics related to the family and evangelization under theme: “The vocation and mission of the family in the church and the modern world.”

Father Healey went on to share with CANAA some of the common views among the colloquium participants, beginning with the concern that the Synod on the family could be dominated by voices from the Church in Europe, which he described as “a danger of a Eurocentric Synod without strong input from Africa.”

Cognizant of the diverse pastoral situations in the Catholic Church all over the world, the colloquium participants expressed the need for concrete pastoral solutions on the local level in each continent, rather than a “one size fits all” universal approach.

The African Catholic scholars further proposed follow-up continental synods.

According to Father Healey, the participants were of the common view to have “an African Synod on African soil with National Bishops Conferences having deliberative, decision-making, legislative power to make pastoral changes and innovations following inculturation and contextualization on the local level.”

Meanwhile, the colloquium convener, Father Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, who is the Principal of the Jesuits’ Hekima University College in Nairobi, told CANAA that the three-year gathering of selected African scholars has made him realize the value of “a conversational and dialogical approach to doing theology that includes all the voices – clergy, lay, women, men, bishops, theologians, old and young.”

Through the discussions, Father Orobator knows too well “the importance of listening to the voices, insights and wisdom of African women in church and society,” as he told CANAA.

Having edited two books corresponding to the first and second colloquium, namely, Theological Reimagination: Conversations on Church, Religion, and Society in Africa and The Church We Want: Foundations, Theology and Mission of the Church in Africa Conversations on Ecclesiology respectively, Father Orobator will compile the presentations and discussions of this third and final colloquium into a book, to be published as the third volume of the three-year colloquium.