The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), in collaboration with the African Synodality Initiative (ASI), has gathered members of the African Continental Synodal Team from 6 to 9 December, 2022 in Accra, Ghana. The meeting, which is the first of two meetings is to enable the Church in Africa pray, listen and discern on the Document for the Continental Synodality (DSC).
This follows the release of the Document for the Continental Synodality by the General Secretariat of the Synod on Synodality on 27 October 2022.
SECAM has tasked the Continental Synodal Team, which comprises of 25 experts gathered from across the Continent to work out modalities for continuation of the discernment process in view of the Continental Assembly scheduled for March 2023.
During the Continental phase, the local church is expected to be guided by the following three questions (DCS #106):
- After having read and prayed with the DCS, which intuitions resonate most strongly with the lived experiences and realities of the Church in Africa?
- What are the substantial tensions, divergencies and issues that have emerged as particularly important from Africa’s perspective and need to be addressed and considered in the next steps of the process?
- What are the priority areas, recurring themes and calls to action that can be shared by Africa with the universal Church and discussed during the first session of the Synodal Assembly that shall take place in October 2023?
At the end of this working session, the team will gather the outcome of the preceding steps of Synodality into a preliminary African Synodal Document and go back home to do the same process of prayerful discernment, sharing and listening to the local people. The fruits gathered at the local level will then be brought to the second working session scheduled for January, 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya.
For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact SECAM’s Continental Synod Communications Coordinator on the following contacts:
- Email Address: kofi@gmail.com
- Mobile +233 24 473 1084