African bishops said that synodality “has confirmed the Church’s way of doing things in Africa” following a reportedly “tense” final session of the continental assembly in Addis Ababa.
A communiqué issued on 6 March described the assembly in the Ethiopian capital as “an experience of lived synodality – a moment of profound dialogue, listening and discernment”.
It continued: “Synodality is no longer a remote desire, a faint hope or a distant future objective.”
The assembly’s 206 participants, including 9 cardinals, 29 bishops and 41 priests, met on 1-6 March and had formed 15 working groups.
They spent Saturday 5 March in efforts to whittle their respective priorities down to five, but eventually reached a consensus on eight points.
These included a call for renewed pastoral care for families, focusing on broken marriages, re-married couples and single parents, a call for liturgical renewal to encourage participation in worship, and a commitment to fight the exploitation of natural resources and to promote ecological stewardship.
The assembly also called on the Church to consider “communitarian culture as expressed in philosophies such as Ubuntu, Ujamaa, Indaba and Palaver where co-responsibility and subsidiarity are key principles”.
The final communiqué added: “Our continent is blessed with [the] rich principles and values of our cultures and traditions. Indeed, rooted in African anthropological principles and cultural values [of] community spirit, sense of family, teamwork, solidarity, inclusivity, hospitality and conviviality, the Catholic Church has grown as a Family of God.”
It also acknowledged calls to reform “rigid hierarchical structures, unhealthy autocratic tendencies, harmful clericalism and isolating individualism”, promising to introduce new forms of leadership and “the possible exercise of various forms of lay ministry”.
The role of the young, and especially of women, was key to the success of synodality, it said.
Women are the majority and the “backbone” of the African Church, and synodality offered them “an opportunity for ‘full and equal participation’ in the life of the Church”.
“There is no way true synodality can happen in the Church if women are not considered as equal partners,” the communiqué said.
It also affirmed the ongoing process of synodality “as a habitual way of proceeding in the Church”.
“Enlivened by the spirit of inter-culturality, ecumenism and interfaith encounter, we walk together with others, appreciating cultural differences, understanding those particularities as elements which help us to grow.”
Speaking at the assembly’s conclusion on Saturday, Bishop Lucio Muandula of Xai-Xai in Mozambique cited Psalm 133:
“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.”
Bishop Muandula, the first vice-president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), had chaired the continental synodal process, including two preparatory assemblies in Accra and Nairobi.
The president of SECAM, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, called the assembly “a Kairos for renewal of the Church in Africa”.
The bishops returned for a final working session on Sunday. They will submit the final document for Africa to the synod office in Rome on 31 March.
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