SECAM: Official Appointed Member of Synod Preparatory Commission

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA

The First Vice-President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) Bishop Lucio Andrice Muandula of Mozambique’s Xai-Xai Catholic Diocese has been appointed a member of the Vatican’s Preparatory Commission to facilitate the holding of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, scheduled for October 2023.

SECAM and the entire Church in Africa “express deep joy” for the new appointment, the Secretary General for SECAM Fr. Rafael Simbine Junior said in a message shared with AMECEA Online Friday, March 17, stressing, “This is a task of great responsibility.”

“Indeed this commission is asked to foster the ongoing process of renewal of the whole Catholic Church in order to be a synodal Church, a Church of Communion, participation and mission,” the Secretary General added.

Other members of the commission created by the Secretary General of the Synod His Excellency Mario Cardinal Grech include: Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa, who will serve as coordinator; Archbishop Timothy John Costelloe of Perth, President of the Australian Bishops’ Conference; Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas; Father Dario Vitali, a professor of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome; and Polish Msgr. Tomasz Trafny, a member of the Synod Secretariat staff, who will serve as Secretary of the Commission.

Consequently, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, General Relator of the upcoming synod, will also participate in the work of the Commission.