Missionaries of Africa
Rome Synod

Seán O'Leary M.Afr.
Auditor

Echos from African Synod,

Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2009
Subject: Synod Report No.4

Dear Friends,

Dear Friends,

Regular readers will be happy to hear the Synod is back on track; at
least that is, in my group. Since my last 'missive' we have been working
in groups and I stand corrected, there are 12 working groups and not 8,
made up of about 25 to 30 in each group, The aim of the work in groups
is to make 'Propositions' about the issues we would like to see in the
final message, which will come out at the end of the Synod, and
eventually in the Synod Exhortation which will be written after the
Synod. My first 'proposition' was to say that all 'propositions' ought
to adhere to the central theme of the Synod, which is that of
reconciliation, justice and peace and this we did.

The group agreed to advance the six issues we raised from 'the working
document' as 'propositions' (see report No.3) and over two days we added
another ten. Our deliberations began with rather a strange intervention
by a Tanzanian Bishop who said: 'when the laity gather they blame the
priest; when the priests meet they blame the Bishop and when the Bishops
come together they blame everyone else'. He when onto to say that the
installation of Bishops had become like coronations and worse still
Bishops ruled like kings. The outcome was a 'proposition' calling for
servant-leadership within the Church, a cry for a much more humbler
style of leadership. This was followed by 'propostitions' on the buying
of large stretches of fertile land by multinationals, environmental
degradation, a plea for a spirituality of justice and peace, prisons
(four of the group had been in jail) the use of Catholic media as an
instrument of advancing the cause of reconciliation, justice and peace
and so on. In our group we have a rather zealous and very spiritual
Archbishop from the Phillipeans who after two days of exhaustive work
declared with passion that here we were at a Synod in the Vatican and we
had not made a 'propostion' on the Blessed Virgin Mary. I intervened to
say in my humble opinion the Blessed Virgin Mary did not need to be
propositioned, a sentiment that won the day in the group. In all the 12
groups produced 216 'propositions'. We submitted 16 but the group next
door to us submitted over 60, they were obviously French speaking.

The Holy Father finally got to meet me on Saturday morning the 17th and
we had a very interesting conversation that lasted all of about 20
seconds and went something like this: Seán: Holy Father I am the
Director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute in Pretoria, South Africa.
Holy Father: He was a great man. Seán: Indeed, he was Holy Father. And
that was the end of the very interesting conversation with the Holy
Father. I did not get the t-shirt but I did get the photo.

One of the real highlights of the Synod was a private visit to the
Sistine Chapel Saturday afternoon. Despite the fact the Chapel is a
stone's throw from were we are meeting they insisted on driving us there
and the bus got lost, losing as it did precious time for our private
visit. Nevertheless, it was an incredible experience, breathtakingly
beautiful and mind boggling as to how human beings could produce such a
galaxy of amazement. It is truly for me one of the uncrowned wonders of
the world.

There is a bit of a pause now with Monday off as the Synod Secretariat
compile the 216 propostions into some kind of coherent order, the
outcome of which will be presented to us on Tuesday morning the 20th. On
Monday I have been invited by the Irish Ambassador to the Holy Sea for
what I hope will be a mighty lunch.

We are now entering the last week of the Synod.

With best wishes,

Seán O'Leary
seanol@fastmail.fm