SACBC Plenary: Property rates, boundaries, synod and catechists

by Admin · August 3, 2022

SACBC Bishops at plenary 2022 meeting in Mariannhill, Pinetown. Photo: SACBC

By SACBC – The SACBC plenary meeting 2022 is underway at Mariannhill Monastery in Pinetown, Durban. Compared with previous plenaries, this one will be shorter, lasting five days in total. The plenary began with a board meeting and a reflection to open the session, instead of the Opening Mass as in the previous plenaries.

On the second day. the Secretary-General of the Conference, Fr Hugh O’Connor, gave his report. He congratulated the Auxiliary-Bishop-Elect of Pretoria, Mgr John Selemela on his appointment to the Archdiocese. He also expressed his condolences to Archbishop Jwara, Bishop Risi, and Bishop Phalana on the passing away of the priests in their dioceses. Fr O’Connor touched on various issues concerning the secretariat including the issue of property rates that now affect the Church properties. The issue here is that some municipalities have now removed the Place of Worship designation from their rates policy, categorising all non-residential church property under Business and Commercial. The policy is in force already for instance in the City of Cape Town and the feeling is that other municipalities may follow suit and that calls for a challenge.

After the Secretary General’s report, the discussion was on the boundaries of the dioceses. The discussion is basically about the realities of small dioceses or communities which are not economically viable. And whether there would be a need to suppress some of the dioceses or create new dioceses. The discussion involved the challenges brought about by these ideas and how they will affect the people of God. Another issue in deliberation is whether it’s necessary to change the names of dioceses when there are political name changes since it might change again with a new political party in charge in the future.

A summary of the Synod of Synodality was also discussed in the morning session. This is a summary that was compiled from the reports which were submitted by the dioceses to the secretariat for collation. In general, the summary shows that there are areas of convergence from all dioceses in terms of what they think about certain issues in the Church, but also as to be expected, there are areas where there is a wide divergence of ideas and feelings.

In the afternoon the department of Christian Formation and Apostolate of the Laity presented views from the three bishops of the department regarding issues around celebrating Mass and other sacraments in the post-covid restrictions era. They looked at factors like the use of masks, communion of concelebrants, communion from the chalice and sanitising. It was concluded on the note that whatever the diocese decides it will be important to communicate these things to the priests and the faithful. The department also led a discussion on the ministry of instituted catechists. The department provided some proposals for ongoing discussion and planning in regard to the ministry of catechists. It was felt that the matter needs further consideration from diocesan levels.