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Healing and reconciliation is an ancient and central ministry in the church and is the first focus area to be shared with the faithful in a new pastoral plan by the Southern African Bishops Conference. Source: http://sacbc.org.za/12581/.
Dec. 30, 2019
Catholic San Francisco
A new pastoral plan by the Catholic bishops of Southern Africa, the first in more than 30 years, calls on all the baptized “to be missionary disciples of Jesus in the present and to let the Spirit guide us into the future.”
Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha diocese, who is also president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, has announced that conference will unveil the plan Jan. 26 at Regina Mundi Catholic Church in Soweto, Vatican News reported.
The theme of the plan is "Evangelizing Community Serving God, Humanity and All Creation.""According to Bishop Sipuka, it is important that the faithful attend the launch as a way of witnessing to what the Catholic faith was all about – namely, a church whose faith responds to the needs of the time," Vatican News said.
Also invited to the launch is South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa. Bishops of South Africa, Botswana and eSwatini, as members of the conference, are expected to attend.
“When we want to do something, we make a plan. When the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit summoned creation into being, God had a plan. At every moment God invites us to play a part in the unfolding of that plan,” the conference says in a summary of the plan posted on its website.
God has a plan for creation, the bishops state, and so too all the baptized must have a plan to peacefully bring Christ into individual lives, families, parishes, small Christian communities and the natural world through ongoing formation and discipleship.
“To be pastoral is to look after others rather than self, look out for them before looking at your own wants; to look for the lost, bandage the wounded, carry the weak, assist the wayward, care for the strong, ensure food for the journey, avoid what is harmful, deal with danger, provide for the future.
“A Pastoral Plan helps and guides us all to listen and respond to the leading of the Spirit, to enter into the Father’s plan for our Church and our world; to be missionary disciples of Jesus in the present and to let the Spirit guide us into the future,” the bishops state.
Each Catholic and all Catholic communities in the conference area are, in their own context, invited to study, to discuss and decide how to implement the plan. Study sessions should be arranged in all parishes, groups and movements. Implementation of the plan will be ongoing, monitored and evaluated. The conference’s Council for Evangelization will regularly review and evaluate how the plan is being received and implemented.
“There are many ways to evangelize. New ways arise all the time to meet new needs and new situations. The Holy Spirit is ever creative, forever prompting responses to new situations,” the bishops state, citing Isaiah 43: “Look I am doing something new!”
The bishops define an evangelizing community as one that “tells the Good News about Jesus to others. It keeps on trying to do good all the time for its own members, for others, and for our common home, our planet Earth.”
To implement the plan, the bishops indentified eight focus areas where evangelizing communities can devote their energies and resources. The focus areas include:
-- Self-understanding which promotes the values of one’s own culture and allows one to dialogue honestly and openly in an inter-cultural environment
-- Formation for everyone. Not just for being an evangelised community but also for being an evangelizing community. Gradually becoming missionary disciples in every area of our everyday life.
-- Readiness to reach out to everyone. Young and elderly, sick and healthy, local and foreigner, Christians and those of other faiths … rich and poor, employed and jobless, well off and struggling, victims and perpetrators.
-- Vibrant and renewed parishes incorporating and collaborating with different groupings.
The bishops also stress “laity formation and empowerment.” This includes “understanding and support in their struggle to be Christians wherever they are, formation in ethics and the moral virtues, e.g., honesty and Reflection on how to address the social ills in various communities with awareness of the Social Teachings of the Church and the See-Judge-Act method.”
Under the heading of Justice, Peace and Nonviolence, the bishops point to the following focus areas:
-- Continuing conversion of attitudes and behavior
-- Justice and reconciliation in group relations
-- Promoting non-violence and peace-building
-- Gender-based violence
-- Addressing racism and xenophobia
-- Human trafficking
-- Addressing corruption, economic injustice and exclusion
-- Understanding the Social Teachings of the Church and their demands within the sociopolitical situation
-- Addressing violence and abuse in the home
“In order to put this ideal into practice, the Church in Africa must help to build up society in cooperation with government authorities and public and private institutions that are engaged in building up the common good,” the bishops say.
The bishops stress that the church is committed to “absolute respect for every innocent human life also requires the exercise of conscientious objection in relation to procured abortion and euthanasia.”
Under the heading of Healing and Reconciliation, the bishops focus on:
-- Personal healing – physical, emotional, relational and spiritual
-- Healing and reconciliation in interpersonal relationships
-- Healing in families, religious communities and formation houses
-- Healing and reconciliation among the clergy
-- Healing and reconciliation among nations, tribes and races
-- Deliverance from internal and external forces
-- Exorcism
Focus areas under Care of Creation and the Environment are:
-- Education, awareness and behavioural change which helps us live and practice the Gospel in our care for creation and the environment
-- An analysis which helps underscore the relationship between sociopolitical demands and behavioral patterns which promote care for creation and the environment
-- Care for the earth
-- Care for the soil, water and air
-- Care for the environment
-- Care for animals
-- Use of water
-- Careful use of resources: reduce, recycle and reuse
-- Care for beauty