SYNOD ON SYNODALITY: “Let us Go Back as Active Ambassadors of Synodality,” Archbishop Nkea to Synod Delegates
Archbishop Nkea
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
One of the delegates attending the ongoing XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome has urged fellow participants to go back to their countries and conferences as active ambassadors of synodality.
In a video clip published by the Vatican News on Tuesday, October 22, Archbishop Andrew Fuanya Nkea of Bamenda Archdiocese in Cameroon and a member of the Ordinary Council of the Synod who was appointed by Pope Francis said, “My advice for everyone is that, at the end of this synodal assembly, we don’t go back as passive recipients of this new way of being a Church, but we go back as active ambassadors.”
According to the Prelate who doubles as the president of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC), there was a lot of hesitation at the beginning of the month-long assembly which commenced on Wednesday, October 02, especially when so many topics were coming up for discussions.
Archbishop Nkea has called upon all the participants to contextualize synodality in their own local Churches and “to get everyone involved,” so that all may “Walk together hand in hand towards the Kingdom of God.”
After the first- phase of the synod on synodality that was held in October 2023, Archbishop Nkea shared during a webinar session that was convened by the African Synodality Initiative (ASI), a partnership between the Jesuits 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), that the delegates understood from the conversation in the spirit that it was not their arguments they were passing, since they were not to defend ideologies or promote personal agendas.
“We shared freely, we shared without reserve, we shared without being afraid of any subject and everyone was able to interact in this process,” the Archbishop disclosed stressing that the participants from across the globe experienced “deep communion of the spirit and deep communion of the faith.”
