The First Phase of the 3-Day Working Session of the African Continental Synodal working group of experts of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) (www.SECAM.org) ended in Accra on December 9 2022 with 25 participants from across the Continent of Africa and its Islands having gone through a discernment process of the Synodal journey at the continental phase.

The working session was facilitated by Fr Giacomo Costa SJ, a member of the General Secretariat of the Synod at the Vatican and supported by Dr Philomena Mwaura. The Team, which was made up of lay persons (adults and young people), consecrated persons (men and women), priests and bishops from English, French and Portuguese speaking countries engaged in a spiritual conversation where, among other things, they achieved the following:

1. Re-reading the working Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) from the local context, the working group appreciated what the People of God from across the African continent have expressed during the first phase of the Synod.
2. They have come up with a pathway for continuation with the conversation in the Conferences in view of drafting of an ‘African Synodal Document’. 
3. They experienced what it is to be a Synodal Church, i.e., a way of journeying together.
4.  They also experienced communion with the Universal Church through prayer, listening to each other and to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church in Africa.

In short, the participants have now gone back home with the mission to replicate what they have experienced and achieved in Accra in their local Conferences where they are expected to use the same method of Spiritual Conversation in view of the Second Working Session which is scheduled for January 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya.

For more information, please contact the Secretary General of SECAM on the following contact:

Email Address: rafaelsimbine2013@gmail.com

or

SECAM’s Continental Synod Communications Coordinator on the following contacts:

Email Address: dieudonne.kofi@gmail.com
Mobile +233 24 473 1084

Yours in the service of Christ,

Fr. Rafael Simbine Junior
Secretary General, SECAM