(Bishop co-adjutor of Muyinga, Burundi)
The living ecclesial communities are, by their nature, contributions to the entrenching of faith in the life of populations so that Christian may be witnesses within their true existence.
In addition to what is said in no.45 of the Instrumentum Laboris, here are the main functions of the living ecclesial communities:
1. The base Christian community makes up an appropriate framework of interiorisation and verification of the evangelical values.
2. Such a community lends itself well as framework of reconciliation.
3. She permits a collective and progressive taking into conscience of the horizontal and vertical dimensions of faith by its members.
4. She contributes to giving anew the social dimension of faith in its daily practice.
5. The living ecclesial community is a school of formation of respect and in defence of the rights of man. It is a practical framework of justice and of human promotion.
I would like to ask the present Assembly of the Synod to deepen this evangelising structure which the General Report and the Instrumentum Laboris have called "living ecclesial communities". Not only do they seem pertinent to me for today's evangelisation in Africa as elsewhere, but they also seem very efficient to me.
This is why I hope that the Synodal Fathers, after they asked for analysis, may manifest the importance, the pertinence and the usefulness to the Catholic world, soliciting solidarity on the part of the local Churches and the Christian communities so that the African and Latin American Churches which have made it their priority are not handicapped by insufficient means.
Original
text: French
