JCAM/AMECEA: Paradigm of Walking Together Should Steer Synodal Process in Africa, Says Cardinal Czerny
His Eminence Michael Cardinal Czenry Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (PIHD Vatican
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
At a webinar to launch a publication highlighting synodal experiences in Africa, the Vatican-based His Eminence Michael Cardinal Czerny has urged the people of Africa to reflect on the need of walking together for the successful realization of the ongoing synod on synodality to be marked in 2023.
“It is important for Synodal contributions from Africa to be aware of the real roots of the meaning of Synod and to hang onto the paradigm of walking together,” Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (PIHD) Cardinal Czerny shared with participants on Wednesday, September 28, acknowledging that, “In Africa, most people are used to walking, and walking together,” an approach that would be appropriate for the synod.
In his sharing during the virtual session convened by the African Synodality Initiative (ASI), a partnership between the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM), the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), and the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA), the Cardinal who is member of the Society of Jesus emphasized that “It is in walking together that relationships are built and strengthened.”
Through walking together the Cardinal said, “Those who get tired along the way are encouraged, supported, and guided to continue the journey,” hence through this walk, “we learn and discern together.”
Cardinal Czerny once worked in Africa for eight-years where he initiated the African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN) to assist Jesuits in responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
As a missionary who had served in the continent for years and understands the aspect of walking together, Cardinal Czerny notes that even Jesus walked with humanity and posed a question to Africans saying, “What lessons can we draw from Jesus walking with us in order to enrich our journey as we walk together as a synodal Church in Africa, in other parts of the world and eventually together as a world-wide Church?
He appreciates that the e-book that was launched September 28, titled “a Pocket Companion to Synodality: Voices from Africa,” presents how to walk like the 12 disciples who journeyed with Jesus hence much of their preparations during their mission took place while walking.
Based on this observation, Cardinal Czerny notes that as the “Church wants to keep going far, while entering into the pedagogy of walking,” there is need to implement the African proverb which says, “If you want to go fast, walk alone, but if you want to go far, walk together.”
While addressing nearly 100 online participants during the webinar, the Cardinal who was sharing his reflections on “why theological insight and voices from local and global church contexts matter” highlighted on the need to learn from Jesus the significance of walking together.
During the three years of Jesus ministry, “the disciples never walked alone; usually, they were together all of them or in small groups,” the Canadian Cardinal shared and continued, “The Master never sent them out on their own but in pairs so they could learn how to walk together in the same direction, with the same rhythm, and supporting each
other when they were tired or find their way together when they were lost or draw out together the fruit of where they have been, what they had done, what they had experienced, what they had failed to do, how they felt blessed and how they felt cast and chased away.”
Speaking about the goals of the Synod on Synodality which has the theme: “Communion, Participation, Mission” Cardinal Czerny notes that the Pope “is making the process of synodality the thematic content to become the Church of the Third Millennium that God wants.”
“The purpose of the Synod is to strengthen the salvific mission of the Church in the contemporary world through an integrated participation of all the faithful,” the Vatican’s Prefect for the Dicastery of PIHD disclosed and added, “the habit of walking, travelling, or journeying together side by side as friends is the spirit of community living. So the purpose of the synodal process is to prepare ourselves, our communities, and our Church structures for the communion and participation and mission that God is calling us to.”
Cardinal further linked the paradigm of walking to the current situation on ecology that the future of the planet depends on rediscovering the significance of walking and “allowing other forms of transport which are fueled by carbon-based products to become secondary and not primary.”
