In the afternoon of Tuesday 2 June, Cardinal Mario Grech and sr. Nathalie Becquart X.M.C.J. met with the bishops of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar (CBCM) in the occasion of their ad limina visit.
On behalf of all the bishops’ conference guided by the President Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, Mons. John Saw Yaw Han, Bishop of diocese of Kengtung, presented the situation of the implementation of synodality in the local Churches.
In order to foster and promote the spirit of synodality, in the dioceses, and collaboration of the bishops, the Bishops’ Conference has created a National Synodal Team (NST) which have organized awareness seminars on synodality: “how to be synodal missionary diocese/ parishes”, several encounters among the clergy, religious, catechists and lay faithful at the national level and diocesan level. The importance and effectiveness of synodal method, and conversation in the spirit were emphasized and practiced in all courses and meetings. The faithful felt more included, valued and respected being able to share and listened to their voices and experiences of success and failures, sorrows and gladness.
The NST also observes that bishops of the dioceses encouraged to increase the synodal spirit in their homily, to arrange for more presence of qualified women in various leadership roles, to organize the awareness program on synodality.
However, the team is also conscious of its imperfections, limitations and weakness such as time constraint due to having other similar important appointments, lack of human resources due to failures in providing specific program, difficulties in transportation, and difficult communication at some time for some places.
The bishops recognize also the need for changes for many priests, religious and lay faithful who are lacking the proper understanding of synodality and Christian obligation to evangelize according to the different vocation due to the long-term practice of clericalism.
“It is urgent to form and reform the leadership style in a synodal way, to strengthen the parish pastoral council and to provide awareness program to the faithful in order to understand the importance of their roles and active participation. It is essential to provide the ongoing formation programs at all levels starting from families to the hierarchical levels” they said.
The NST of CBCM closely collaborate with the FABC synodal team and participated the synodal leadership program.
The bishops are firmly committed to ensure the NST meeting on the regular basis, systematic follow-up of synodal program and clearly defining and adhering to the roles, responsibilities and guidelines.
