(Bishop of Aliwal, South Africa)
The Bishops of Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, together with other groups of Bishops of Africa, actually wanted the Synod for Africa to be a longer process consisting of several sessions, spanning several years. The reason for this wish of the Bishops was to have a change to consult with their co-workers and with the communities of the faithful in between the sessions of the Synod.
It has now become clear that the same goal must rather be pursued in a different form. It must be attempted by adapting the structure of SECAM to become an instrument for the various parts of the Church of Africa to know each other and to understand each other more deeply.
Comparing each other's approach - a non-threatening beginning of co-operation
What is needed is not that SECAM should establish one large super-institute for Africa nor a large administrative structure. What is needed is rather that SECAM initiates a few small teams. These teams are to do nothing more than facilitate a growth of mutual understanding and co-operation, each team concentrating on a major aspect of the life of the Church. One may deal with the promotion of justice, another with the whole question of ministries and communities, another with attempts at inculturation.
What is needed are channels of understanding each other. The methodology for such understanding is the non-threatening way of simply bringing people together to compare their pastoral policies. Dioceses are often doing very valuable work but others do not know about it. The way in which dioceses in Africa live Vatican II is often far ahead of other parts of the world, but not even the neighbouring dioceses know about it, still less other countries of the vast continent. Moreover, it is not just a matter of knowing what the others do or refuse to do, but why they do so or why they hesitate about it. Co-operation is a matter of deeper understanding between the dioceses and Bishops' Conferences.
The task of such teams would be to find out where there are starting points of positive growth, and then to bring together those involved in such efforts. The task of such teams should not be to teach, but to facilitate mutual understanding. In other words, their task would be to facilitate dialogue between the various types of growth in the Church of Africa.
Co-operation and joint planning must be free. It cannot be forced on others, and this is also true of the Church. The dioceses and Bishops? conferences of the Church of Africa need dialogue between each other in order to fulfil the task of evangelisation.
Original
text: English
