Catholic Bishops to hold Synod on youth
BY STELLA ZULU
The 15th ordinary general assembly of the Synod of Bishops has been set to take place in October 2018 in Vatican on the theme Young people, the Faith and Vocational Discernment.
The Synod is aimed at examining how the Church has involved the youths in the mission of proclaiming the joy of the gospel as summoned by Jesus Christ in order to project her future role.
According to the preparatory document for the Synod, the church realizes that the youths have many capabilities to change the world and their situations.
“It is therefore, important to form the young people’s conscience and freedom to understand and choose their vocation with faith and love,” reads part of the document released by Vatican.
The documents further states that young people are hindered from making free life choices by a number of problems including poverty, exclusion, illiteracy, crime, neo slavery, prostitution and forced marriages.
The document indicate that youths also live in a world that is different from that of their elders. Obligations, opportunities, aspirations and needs have evolved. Their local communities including the church therefore, still have a superior bearing in the formation of their identity.
“It is for these reasons that the church wishes to use the coming Synod to engage the youths fully considering that the faith of the young people is a great gift that should not be lost in violence and alienation, “it reads.
Meanwhile, the Church in Malawi therefore, will make consultations on the Youth’s involvement in mission of the Church through a number of questionnaires, interviews and group discussions.
National Pontifical Mission Societies Director, Fr. Vincent Mwakhwawa says the engagement of all Catholics, people of goodwill and the youth themselves, in the preparatory activities will lead into collection of information which will be sent to Vatican to contribute to the working document (Instrumentum laboris) for the discussions during the 15th General Assembly in October 2018.
“In preparation for the Synod, a National Task Force at the Episcopal Conference of Malawi has been formed to facilitate the preparatory exercise. Each diocese is advised to form its own taskforce that will coordinate the collection of the data for the Synod from all Catholic Communities, “said Fr. Mwakhwawa.
He said he data from all Catholic Communities will be compiled by the National Taskforce and submit the results to the Bishops Conference for submission to Vatican and AMECEA.
This preparatory exercise is very important in the Catholic Church, for it will assist the customary ecclesial bodies ‘by right’ to express their understanding of the world of young people and assess their experience of vocational accompaniment, in order to gather information for drafting the work- document.