KENYA: ‘There is a need for Bishops delegates and Youth Respresentatives to the Synod from AMECEA to have a Listening Session,’ – Fr Healey
Rev. Fr. Joseph Healey, MM,
The former Secretary of AMECEA Social Communications Department Rev. Fr. Joseph Healey, MM has suggested that a meeting between the Bishops delegates and representatives of young people to the 15th Ordinary Synod from all AMECEA Countries be organized in order to create a culture of listening to young people.
He explained in an interview with AMECEA Online News that over the years AMECEA has been trying to be a link between the nine countries in Eastern Africa and the best plan still is to have the Bishops who were appointed by each of the Bishops’ Conferences to go to Rome in October, to gather in Nairobi before they leave, meet as a group and discuss the topics of that particular synod.
“What I am suggesting is a new and creative way which is creating a listening session. It would involve having the same Bishops meet with an equal number of young people, half male, half female and have a system plan where the young people can share their ideas with the Bishops one-on-one ahead of time so that the Bishops can get directly the views of the young people,” he explained adding that, by so doing a listening session between the Bishops and the young people will have been created.
Fr. Healey’s suggestion was prompted by the outcome of a survey he and members of the Small Christian Community initiated. The outcome of the survey indicated that Young people wants a space of their own where they can talk freely about issues that affects their lives. They are yearning for a Youth Small Christian Community.
Fr. Healey explained that the Maryknol Society publishing house, Orbis Book is currently putting on a book on young people to be launched in Rome in September, 2018, the weekend before the opening of the synod of Bishops in Rome on young people vocation discernment. The book is called God’s Quad: Small Christian Communities and beyond and it is meant for the Western Audience specifically college Students.
“When it came to what chapter should I write on this book, I said I want to write a chapter called what young people really want to talk about and the only way to find that out is to ask them. So we came up with an idea from the Holy Father Pope Francis who told the Bishops and the church leaders that, you have to be a listening church first and then a teaching Church second. Listening means not making a judgement or evaluating what you are going to hear, but rather just taking it down.”
He further explained that they came up with what they call listening sessions where they got fifteen students sitting around in a circle and just talking freely adding that, the young people wants to be in peer group, where they can talk with their classmates and friends about the things they are interested in and don’t want their parents there.
“As it is in African Society, youth cannot speak freely when the adults are around and it is even worse when their parents are there. Therefore, if the parents are in a small Christian Community the youth will say nothing. They don’t want to be in the same group with their teachers and the reason being that the teachers inhibit them, makes them kind of freeze, and they get shy and not free to open up. Any kind of adult in leadership inhibits or hold back the youth from saying what they want,” he said adding that in these listening sessions, the young revealed to him that the institutional church come across as rules and regulations.
The young people do not like hearing themselves being beaten down rather they prefer inspiratory talks that motivates them. “Because of my ministry with the small Christian Communities young people of the Eastern Africa and the United States of America have a deep faith and they are searching for a safe place where they can freely share.”
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By Pamela Adinda,
