South Sudanese Bishop Explains Evangelization Roadmap of First Diocesan Synod

“For the agents of this evangelization, the Pastors, Priests, Catechists, the Bishops and Seminarians, we resolved that they be engaged in social services,” the South Sudanese Bishop said and added, “They must be engaged in caring for people they work with in order to build a strong community with strong beliefs.”

Explaining the Diocesan Synod launched in October last year, the Bishop Hiiboro recalled, “We launched the first diocesan synod as a way of informing ourselves of who we are, to create possibility to listen to ourselves, to determine our scope of operations, to appreciate and organize what we have.”

The Diocesan Synod whose resolutions are presently being executed in the Diocese was launched under the theme, “We are a family of God’s people, the participatory servant Church.”

Aside from committing to adoring God through the liturgy that is alive and derived from the scriptures, the Diocese that is first to carry out a Synod in South Sudan planned to shape social services, the 56-year-old Bishop told ACI Africa January 27.

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“The social services are part of pastoral ministry and once there is peace building and psychosocial support, it is equally built around the help of our people,” he explained.

He added, “It is the wellbeing of the people and at the same time the community that would be conscious about the course of the children, elderly and women, and so we resolved that it is the Church that will be caring for them.”

Tombura-Yambio Diocese, he said, “resolved within the synod, first to lead towards the holiness of life, a Church that has God as their role model, as their way of living.”

The roadmap developed by the South Sudanese Diocese will be the instrument with which the Diocese will care for evangelization, preach the Word of God and build his kingdom.

“We have the local laws, the Church laws in our own capacity derived from the law of the Church to guide us,” he said and continued, “We have answers, for example, in baptism we have agreed what types of names to use, the way of celebrating the funerals, the liturgy and the way for our catechesis.”

“We are now at the stage of the implementation of our synod resolutions. We did a study, we did a survey, we celebrated it and promulgate it, now it is at the period of implementing our first Diocesan synod,” Bishop Hiiboro told ACI Africa.  

He added, “We need all of us to go to heaven and the work of our synod will prepare us to reach there. We are a family of God’s people, a participatory servant Church.”