ASIA/INDIA – Community in harmony and service to people: the Latin Church’s “synod roadmap”

Bangalore (Agenzia Fides) – “The Gospels speak to us of the dream of Jesus for His disciples, for us. This dream of Jesus for His disciples has two facets: fellowship and mission. To walk with the Church in her mission, Communion must be promoted ” inside and outside”, said Cardinal-appointed Filipe Neri Ferrao, Archbishop of Goa and Daman, Patriarch of the East Indies and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, during the National Synod Meeting of the Latin Church, held in Paalanaa Bhavana, in the pastoral center of Bangalore Archdiocese. , before bishops, priests, religious, nuns and laity of the Latin Rite Church in India a few days ago.
During the meeting, a team of 15 bishops, 12 priests, 10 religious and 27 lay leaders completed a synthesis prepared by the National Synod Commission in collaboration with the Theological Commission of the Bishops’ Conference. The report will be sent to the Synod General Secretariat, at the Vatican, as a contribution from the Latin-rite Indian Catholic community.
Bishop Ferrao recalled the examples of three great leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr, who dreamed and built a better future for their people.
With this in mind, the Latin Church put together a synod that would be “like a roadmap for the Church in India in the next decade”, he said. The synod’s journey, he said, “is an opportunity for the Latin Church in India to see new ecclesiastical paths and adopt a creative pastoral approach that will help it become an authentic synodal Church.”
The paths shown are “greater communion, ecclesiastical participation and mission, which must be lived for the baptism of the subcontinent”, according to the three aspects indicated by the 2021-2023 Synod, to promote the synod Church in all its aspects. .
Among the topics discussed in the synthesis of these works are the excessive clericalism of the Church of India, the discrimination against which women in society and in the Church are victims, the commitment to protect minors in schools and other institutions, the suffering of dalits and migrants. , and the need for greater involvement in youth ministry. The Leboraot document calls for “a Church that listens, a Church that serves, a Church of humility”.
The synthesis prepared by the Latin Church benefited from the contribution of 60 delegates who, representing various dioceses in the country, presented a report with suggestions for the preparation of a final report which, as Father Stephen Alathara told Fides, Deputy Secretary General of the CCBI , would be sent to the Holy See in Rome.
There are about 20 million Catholics in India, which is about 1.55% of the total population. In the Church of India, there are 174 ecclesiastical circles (between dioceses and archdioceses) and of them 132 Latin rites, in addition to the Eastern rite Churches, namely Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankar.
(SD-PA) (Agenzia Fides 5/8/2022)

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