Johannesburg, 03 September, 2022 / 10:17 pm (ACI Africa).
The planned 13th Plenary Assembly of the Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA) will focus on young people, the Director of the Secretariat has said.
In an interview with ACI Africa Wednesday, August 31, Fr. Dumisani Vilakati said, “It is the first time that the Bishops will focus on young people; there's never been an IMBISA Plenary that made a well-intentioned focus on young people.”
Delegates of the Plenary Assembly will reflect on Pope Francis’ Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation to young people, Christus Vivit, Fr. Vilakati said, adding that they discuss how the Papal document “can be translated into practical areas of for young people in the region.”
He highlighted migration, unemployment, formation in the faith, self-care among the issues to be discussed during the Plenary Assembly scheduled to take place in Windhoek, Namibia, adding that the delegates will examine how COVID-19 “has affected young people”.
There are also issues of how young people themselves can contribute towards the building up of societies”, the Director of the IMBISA Secretariat said about the September 22-27 Plenary Assembly that is to bring together Catholic Church leaders from Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, São Tomé and Príncipe, South Africa, and Zimbabwe under the theme, “Building forward together-Reimagining the Church’s Engagement with young people in the IMBISA Region”.