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South Africa: Church Outlines Pastoral Priorities to Better Christian Print E-mail
Written by CISA   
Thursday, 09 August 2007
A pastoral forum held examined ways to revitalize the Catholic faith in southern Africa.

The forum brought together the laity, bishops, clergy and religious from all the dioceses of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland).

Overall, the forum called for relevant and contextual faith formation of Christians at every level of life.

Following are the resolutions passed by the forum:

Vision: A common vision that pulls us all together:

Christ-centered leadership of all the baptized and confirmed, living their relationship with Christ and one another so as to be light to the world, crossing social and cultural barriers to make the churchs work effective and give transforming witness.

Goal for the next 5 years: A Church of well-formed, committed, confident, involved Catholics living and witnessing their faith within their context. Means: Ongoing, lifelong formation and catechesis using an upgraded, relevant contextual methodology leading to a deeper relationship with Christ and one another:

* Scriptural
* Aware of the richness of the Churchs history
* Domestic church focused family life
* Socially aware and involved outreach
* Regular evaluation
* Primary evangelization
* Small Christian Communities
* Liturgy

To use the existing programmes (eg Lumko) more effectively

Structure: An active, listening, caring structure made up of all the baptized and confirmed that enables dialogue, research, caring, monitoring and evaluation and which engages the ever-changing needs of society.

Dioceses to be strengthened and revitalized

Parishes to be strengthened and revitalized

Under the Department of Evangelization:

Each Diocese present to give a name of lay person to be delegated to meet with Fr Barney, Bishops Slattery and Adams. (Fr Barney has the names and contact details with some names of alternatives in case)

Fr Barney to meet with the delegates in their respective Metropolitans. Meetings to commence within three months.

Next August 2008 Bishops Plenary to set aside a day for Pastoral Forum 2008 which, as far as possible will be attended by the present (2007) delegates, where a report back will be rendered.

Task of the above structure

* To explore, research and discuss structure/s for lay consultation

* To explore, research and discuss how to implement and take the discussed structure/s forward in the SACBC territory (Swaziland, Botswana, RSA)

* To come up with ideas and ways to effectively bring about a convincing formation at all levels
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 08 August 2007 )