VATICAN (SE): Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, the head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines [CBCP] offered the national synodal council of the Philippine Church as a template to help widen participation in the global Church and also make it more inclusive.
Bishop David explained that synodal council was formed to discuss an Asia-wide report based on consultations at the parish, vicariate, diocesan, metropolitan, and national levels beginning October 2021, CBCP News reported on October 29.
“I think we were sort of in a consensus that we want the other sectors of the Church to also participate in leadership and we set a trend towards that direction already in the Philippine Church,” the bishop observed.
“We have to hear the voices that are not heard within the Church,” he stressed.
Bishop David said that a synodal council would be an exercise of “co-responsibility in mission,” one of the priorities of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality.
The bishop said that in the proposed template, the CBCP would just be one of the members of the council, CBCP News reported, and it should also incorporated people of other faith confessions and not just representatives of lay organisations.
“In the Philippines when people ask, ‘What is the stand of the Church?’ they’re always asking for the stand of CBCP, but CBCP is the bishops. The Church is not just made up of CBCP, the Church in the Philippines is so huge, so wide,” Bishop David said.
