By Sujata Jena
New Delhi, Dec 8, 2023: India’s Latin rite Church is preparing its people to face modern challenges.
For this, it has launched a training program on strategic planning training for the 14 regions of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India.
A training program was held December 6-7 at Navinta Retreat Centre in New Delhi’s Okhala.
Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi, secretary general of the Conference, opened the program attended by 68 delegates from the regions of Agra, North, Northeast, Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar.
Archbishop Couto in his opening address called upon the participants to be aroused in true faith commitment to Christ and the Gospel. He said, continuously abiding in Christ comes to Christians in three ways, in his incarnation, daily in power and Spirit, and in his majesty and glory.
The strategic planning, he said, is to focus Christians’ attention on Christ, so that the Church in India is ready to face challenges that come its way.
Looking ahead to the great jubilee of Christendom in 2033, the prelate said Christians have to realize that the Risen Lord is with them as they move ahead as committed disciples.
The archbishop explained that the strategic planning is the brainchild of Father Stephen Alathara, the conference’s deputy secretary general, who is supported by Father Charles Leon, the executive secretary of the conference’s commission for vocation, seminary, clergy, and religious.
The program was facilitated by Jesuit Father Joe Xavier, Fathers Leon, and Jaison Vadassery, secretary of the Commission for Migrants, and Sister Lidwin Fernandes, secretary for the Commission for Women.
Father Xavier has developed a framework for the participants to conduct one-day workshops in their dioceses. He stressed the three pillars of strategic planning — a time-bound dream, strategic alignment, and communal discernment.
He explained how the participants have to be led into the methodology of strategic planning and how the groups have to conduct the spiritual conversation. To assess whether the participants understood the procedure for the diocesan workshop the meeting organized each region to give a mock presentation.
The training’s next batch is scheduled December 11-13 at Paalanaa Bhavan, Bengaluru, southern India, for delegates from Andhra-Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and the western region.
Father Alathara explained that the conference was set up in 1988. It has now 132 dioceses, 23 archbishops, 195 bishops, 16 commissions, four apostolates, and six departments.
St. John Paul II, after his first Indian visit in 1986, wrote an apostolic letter to the Indian bishops on May 28, 1987, which read thus: “The Bishops of each of the three Rites have the right to establish their own Episcopal Bodies by their ecclesiastical legislation. The CBCI which is an Assembly of the bishops of India of the three Rites is to continue in matters of common concern and of national and supra-ritual character. These areas are to be determined in the new statutes of the CBCI.”
As soon as the Sui Iuris Churches were separated from the CBCI, it lost its canonical status and the individual Sui Iuris Churches took charge of the Commissions. This took place in 1992 at the General Body Meeting of the CBCI held in Pune. After the 1992 meeting, the CCBI Commission for Bible, Catechetics, and Liturgy was established, and slowly began to animate these apostolates in the country.
Father Leon, the coordinator of the program, said the diocesan phase will begin in January 2024 and run until April. The Latin conference aims to publish the Strategic Planning document in May 2024, incorporating input from more than 35,000 participants from across the country.
The strategic plan aims to invigorate the Latin conference’s 16 commissions, four apostolates, and six departments, along with the regional and diocesan commissions. It serves as a follow-up to the CCBI Pastoral Plan formulated in 2013 and aligns with the two national syntheses for the Synod submitted for the Continental and Universal Synods, Father Leon explained.
The conference leaders will take the process to regional levels, encouraging broader participation, including from religious and lay faithful. This approach aims to foster collective ownership of the plan, involving all sections of the people of God. The goal is to generate new energy and passion among participants to comprehend the Synodal Journey, the priest added.
With Pope Francis’ 18 December 2023 proclamation of “Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust),” which is a declaration on Catholic doctrine that allows Catholic priests to bless persons in same-sex relationships and certain other relationships, I guess the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) has to add a new dimension to its Strategic Planning, especially on the Commission of Family!