Bangalore 28 December 2022 (CCBI): The six-member drafting committee of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of India gathers from 28 to 30 December 2022, at Paalanaa Bhavana, Bangalore, Karnataka, to discern the Document for the Continental Stage, and to produce a 10-page synthesis from the 101 syntheses collected across the country. Earlier, addressing the draft committee, His Eminence Filipe Neri Cardinal Ferrão, President of the CCBI, exhorted that the synthesis has to be the work of the Holy Spirit, not of the individuals present, and care must be taken not to put our own opinion into the text.
The Continental Stage of the Synod for a Synodal Church 2021-2024 began in late October 2022. The message of the Synod is simple: we are learning to walk together and to sit with one another to break the one bread, so that everyone can find their place. Everyone is called to take part in this journey, no one is excluded. We feel called to this so that we can credibly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus to all peoples. This is the road we seek to continue along on the Continental Stage as well.
The Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) is the fruit of listening and discernment that returns to all local Churches that which emerged from local / national syntheses. It is intended to enable dialogue between local Churches and between the local Church and the universal Church.
The 10-page synthesis will be sent to the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC), which will convene the Continental Stage of the Synod in later February 2023. The document that emerges as the fruit of discernment will help the General Secretariat of Synod to create Working Document (Instrumentum Laboris) for the first session in October 2023.
Rev. Dr. Yesu Karunanidhi
National Coordinator, Synod India