Bangalore: A leading pontifical seminary in India will organize an international conference early next year to make Catholic religious life meaningful and relevant in modern era.
“We invite the creative participation and academic contributions from all those who love and promote consecrated life in the church and to be part of these deliberations to make consecrated life more meaningful and contextual in this new era of globalism, secularism and religious fundamentalism,” said Dr Wilson Chakkyath, a Carmelite of Mary Immaculate priest who is the chief convener of the conference.
The conference is scheduled for January 7-9, 2016, at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (DVK), Pontifical Athenaeum of Philosophy, Theology, Canon Law and Formative Spirituality, that Father Chakkyath’s congregation manages in Bangalore, capital of Karnataka state.
The conference with the theme “Consecrated life in a globalized era: the Catholic, Ecumenical, and interreligious perspectives” would come immediately after the Catholic Church ends its celebration of the “year of Consecrated Life” called by Pope Francis.
Participants will spend the three days dealing with four categories of actions and deliberations — liturgy and prayers seasons, keynote addresses, plenary seasons and parallel sessions.
In all, the conference will hear 40 paper presentations covering the major areas of concerns in consecrated life. It will offer a platform to search together answers for the contemporary challenges to religious life. It would help the religious search new avenues and effective solutions, both in being consecrated persons and in reaching out to the larger realities that the Church and society.
The topics for paper pare chosen are in the field of scriptural foundations of Consecrated Life, teaching of the Church on Consecrated Life, historical unfolding of Consecrated Life, significance and reinterpretation of charism.
They would study what Pope Francis teaches about the Consecrated Life and the emerging paradigms, challenges and prospects of such a life in the modern world. The conference will also study Consecrated Life’s ecumenical perspective and how such a life is lived in other religions. Another area of concern is the role and influence of communication media in Consecrated Life.
“We witness profound and lasting changes in the arena of our ecclesial and social life, which affect the form and content of consecrated life in the Church,” Chakkyath said. A transplanted consecrated life ceases to function and fails in its apostolic mission. Consecrated life, perhaps, needs a new language and new way of seeing things and a new style of functioning so that it would be more intelligible, practical, integral and wholesome, he added.
The conference would identify the peripheries and essential in consecrated life, especially in the context of India, examine the commonalities that can be shared with those leading similar life in other churches and religion.
It would also aim at opening up a wider horizon to nourish and cherish vocation to consecrated life, exploring new paradigms in formation and mission, promoting psycho-spiritual integration in consecrated life and achieving wholeness in consecrated life, thus to realize mystical communion with the person of Jesus.