ETHIOPIA: “Our Pastoral Priority is to Bear Witness to Communion,” Pope Francis
Picture of participants
Bezawit Assefa
The Second Grand consultation for the Ethiopian Catholic Church’s first church-wide Pastoral Planning has been concluded on April 27th, 2023.
The National Steering Committee, in collaboration with the team of external consultants, has hosted the Ethiopian Catholic Church Second Grand Consultation forum for the preparations of the 10-year Pastoral planning from April 24th -27th, 2023. The consultation forum was held at Saint Francis Friary in Addis Ababa, with an in-depth discussion based on the Church’s Pastoral works, operational issues, education and health services and Social Development works.
The Vatican’s nuncio in Ethiopia Archbishop Antoine Kamilleri, Catholic bishops from different dioceses and about 120 representatives from Religious congregations, National and Diocesan Secretariats, Formation houses, Priest Associations, Youth, Laity, Seminarians, partner organizations based in Addis Ababa, were participated during the consultation.
As the Synodal Journey is the centre point and inspiration of the preparation of the long-term plan, the forum’s main agenda was to discuss how the Ethiopian Catholic Church should be united in the synodal union, with all participation in the missions, regarding strengthening the relationship between the national office of the Episcopal Conference and dioceses, Congregations and dioceses, Congregations and Parishes.
In realizing the vision and mission of the Catholic Church, the priority areas that were defined by participants include the teaching of the Church towards pastoral work which requires new ways of evangelization, planning new methods in preaching Catholicism, and the need for new evangelization in places where the Catholic Church has not reached as the Holy Father told us that our first Pastoral priority is to bear witness to communion, for God is communion and he is present wherever there is fraternal charity. Continuing the consultation, the mission and participation of the faithful in the Church, the administrative system of the Church, formation of theology students and priests, liturgy, family and youth empowerment, Christian fellowship and ecumenism, strengthening the capacity of Parish and lay council, strengthening Parish Pastoral Council and spiritual associations and several pastoral issues were discussed.
One of the agendas of this forum is to consult on directions that help the church to provide its service sectors in a better and timely manner to build and strengthen its performance units. Basic issues that challenged the Church’s Financial Management, Human resource management, asset management, and Information Technology were discussed and solutions to the plenary meeting were presented.
Education and health sectors were also widely consulted on the directions in which the Church can address her responsibility to provide services in a manner that preserves Catholic values and with higher quality and to produce qualified citizens who are useful for themselves, their families and the country.
For many years, the Catholic Church in Ethiopia has been working for the integral development of human beings created in the image of God. In order to attain her qualified services in the next ten years, the Catholic Church is planning to meet the basic needs of mankind, to always reach out to the places when a natural and man-made disaster occurs, to continue her humanitarian support to the best extent, to work on nature conservation and climate protection, and to ensure that its overall development activities are in accordance with their pastoral mission.
In conclusion, the forum was able to single out issues that the Catholic Church should prioritize in the next ten years and reach consensus. At last, the National Steering Committee has validated the accomplishment of the workshop agenda items and presented the way forward. The NSC has announced the completion of the third phase, Analysis of the strategic planning and the beginning of the fourth and last phase, Formulation phase of the roadmap aiming to produce the draft framework by June 2023.
