Report by Philip Matthew, Matters India reporter, Indian bishops to seek Church response to current challenges

Dr James Kottoor replies:

The General body meeting of the Catholic Bishops conference of India (CBCI) is a two-yearly happening. The participants in this meet are the bishops of the three different Rites – on it there are still many unresolved questions --- like Latin, Syromalbar and Syromalankara.

More than 180 bishops from these Rites (right or wrong) have already started their week-long session on Feb.2^nd. Its theme is “The Response of the Church in India to the Present Day Challenges.” It stands out for two distinct features: 1. Presence of Archbishop Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington is the invited Chief Guest. Similar was the presence of President Obama for the Republic day. 2. The invited Justice Cyriac Joseph gave the keynote address. Lack of due advance publicity, we already noted, was a flaw on the part of organizers. Why?

Our stress is on due publicity, that is, publicity the event deserves.

 We thank FutureChurch for alerting us to this.

Reprinted with permission from The Swag, Autumn 2016

Underlying the proceedings at the 2^nd Vatican Council were two major principles: ressourcement, calling for a return to the sources, and aggiornamento, calling for a genuine update of the Church to increase its relevancy to the modern world.

For two millennia the ecclesia, founded on the leadership of the Apostles, had held firm to the essence of its faith, worship and governance, but with the passage of time and the vicissitudes of history had also acquired much peripheral baggage of beliefs, customs and practices far removed from the apostolic tradition. Many were also anachronistic, with little or no meaning for the Church and world of the 20^th century, and they were hindering, not helping evangelization.

Pope Francis, 17 October 2015, said in a speech commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the setting up of the Synod of Bishops,

The first level of the exercise of synodality is had in the particular Churches. After mentioning the noble institution of the Diocesan Synod, in which priests and laity are called to cooperate with the bishop for the good of the whole ecclesial community,(22) theCode of Canon Law devotes ample space to what are usually called “organs of communion” in the local Church: the presbyteral council, the college of consultors, chapters of canons and the pastoral council.(23) Only to the extent that these organizations keep connected to the “base” and start from people and their daily problems, can a synodal Church begin to take shape: these means, even when they prove wearisome, must be valued as an opportunity for listening and sharing.

Read the whole speech

Read Church reform requires decentralization, synodality by Thomas Reese SJ

by Virginia Saldanha, Mumbai

Abstract

The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI brought into public domain the numerous problems the institutional Church is besieged with but the election of a Latin American Pope brought us a ray of hope. A man with his ear to the ground, constantly “reading the signs of the time and interpreting it in the light of the gospel” (Gaudium et Spes, #; hereafter GS), he calls upon the entire Church to transform itself. He outlines the transformation in his first encyclical Evangeli Gaudium [hereafter EG].

In 1990 the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), articulated their vision for the Church in Asia to promote the role of the People of God, in the mission of the Church in the modern world as well as to promote communion and solidarity with the poor and marginalized sections of society without distinction of class or faith.

My paper attempts to take a deeper look at the vision of the New Way of Being Church and examine how it can become a reality for a Church of the Future.

Go to the paper