COMSAM SYMPOSIUM: MOMENTS OF STUDY, EMOTION AND PRAYER

The great family of African Catholic consecrated women and men is gathered in South Africa for an interactive symposium from 23 to 25 May, in Johannesburg (St Dominic Girls School, Boksburg), then from 26 to 30 May in Pretoria (St John Maria Vianney Seminar) for the annual General Assembly of the members of the Confederation of Conferences of Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar (COMSAM/COSMAM). Two historic events.

On the theme “Hope, Synodality, and the Empowerment of Consecrated Life in Africa”, this twofold event is being attended by a large number of religious and several invited religious authorities from different parts of Africa and elsewhere. Among the guests were His Eminence Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo Besungu, OFM Cap, Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Magadascar (SECAM), and Sister Simona Brambilla, Prefect of the Vatican City Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

At the opening ceremony on Friday 23 May in Johannesburg, the President of COMSAM, Mother Marie Diouf from Senegal, thanked all the participants, guests and partners of these two events, including the Catholic Church in South Africa. These events are organised by COMSAM in partnership with the Leadership Conference of Consecrated Life South Africa (LCCL-SA), chaired by Sr Zelna Oosthuizen, RGS, in collaboration with the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), chaired by Cardinal Stephen Brislin, Archbishop of Johannesburg, and a number of supporting organisations, including SECAM, Missio, CWL and the Hilton Foundation.

Conferences and reflections

Several thematic conferences were presented at the COMSAM symposium, alternating with group work. There were also a number of group discussions on the ‘seed of hope’ that consecrated persons represent within the Catholic Church and that they are called to be in the city, in the communities.

‘We have become aware that we are signs of God’s mercy; we are consecrated to be signs and the voice of the Lord in the midst of our brothers and sisters’, said the participants.

Summing up the discussions, the religious men and women gathered in Johannesburg declared: ‘Whatever our daily sorrows or joys in consecrated life, we must always keep this hope in God’. Because ‘the world counts on us and we must always count on God, who makes us seeds of hope’.

‘Walking together’ in a synodal spirit

The President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Magadascar (SECAM), Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, congratulated and thanked the consecrated men and women for their prayers, which have benefited the universal Church, in this case the Cardinals, during the great moments that have recently marked the history of the Church.

During his address, the cardinal invited them ‘to walk together in the synodal spirit’. For him, ‘consecrated life and religious communities in Africa must remain laboratories of synodality’. Indeed, because of our cultures, we are predestined for synodal life with the traditional ‘Ubuntu’ and the palaver tree: ‘I am because we are’.

He reassured the participants that Mother Church was counting on them. He also urged them to walk together as brothers and sisters, and to collaborate with SECAM and all the bishops.

Consecrated persons urged to ‘collaborate with the laity

Referring to Pope Francis and the Synod on Synodality, the Cardinal Archbishop of Kinshasa exhorted the consecrated to ‘collaborate with the laity, form them and integrate them into our different charisms, valuing them and listening to them’.

Jeanne Waruguru Kimathi insisted on ‘the contribution of the African palaver tree as an African participation in the synod’; she affirmed that consecrated life in Africa always remains the landmark and the eye of the synodal spirit. In Africa, our culture is above all synodal. We must not lose sight of this African value. In dialogue and exchange, we can build and do better.

SECAM News, with COMSAM