Seminary rectors from across the Inter-Regional Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA) region have gathered at the Padre Pio Retreat Centre in the Archdiocese of Pretoria to explore how synodality can be integrated more deeply into the formation of future priests.
The African Synodality Initiative workshop on synodality curriculum development began on Tuesday, 27 October, and will conclude on Friday, 30 October. It brings together rectors and formators from seminaries across the region to reflect on the meaning of synodality and consider practical ways of embedding its principles in seminary formation.
Participants represent several episcopal conferences, including the Conferência Episcopal de Angola e São Tomé (CEAST), the Lesotho Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the Episcopal Conference of Mozambique (CEM) and the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
The workshop comes as the Catholic Church continues implementing the vision of a synodal Church, emphasising communion, participation and mission. Its focus is on preparing future priests not only to understand synodality theologically, but also to practise it in their pastoral leadership and ministry. At the beginning of the programme, rectors were invited to introduce their seminaries and share initiatives already undertaken to introduce and embed synodality in their formation programmes. This exchange provided an opportunity for participants to learn from experiences across the region while considering how formation structures, teaching methods and community life could better reflect the Church’s synodal vision.
Synodality as the Church’s ordinary way of life
Among the key contributors on the opening day was Jesuit Father Agbonkhianmege E. Orobator, who joined participants virtually to introduce the Synod on Synodality and its implications for the life of the Church.
Father Orobator, a Nigerian theologian and former president of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar, participated as a voting member of the 2023 and 2024 assemblies of the Synod of Bishops on synodality. He currently serves as dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in California.
Drawing on the Synod’s Final Document, For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission, Father Orobator highlighted the statement that synodality is the Church’s ordinary way of living and working. He invited participants to reflect on what this means for the Church and, in particular, for those responsible for forming future priests. The challenge, he suggested, is to move beyond treating synodality as a newly introduced programme or an occasional pastoral activity and instead recognise it as a way of being Church.
Father Orobator also recalled Pope Francis’ vision for the Church’s synodal journey, expressed in 2015 during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops.
Pope Francis described the journey of synodality as the journey God expects of the Church in the third millennium. According to Father Orobator, this vision calls for a renewed understanding of listening as an essential dimension of ecclesial life. A synodal Church, he explained, is a Church that listens, recognising that listening involves more than simply hearing another person speak. It requires a willingness to learn from one another.
He emphasised the importance of mutual listening, in which everyone has something to contribute and something to learn. This approach has important implications for seminaries, where future priests must be prepared to listen to the People of God, accompany their communities and exercise leadership through dialogue and discernment. Although he regretted being unable to attend in person, Father Orobator expressed gratitude for the opportunity to contribute virtually to what he described as an important process in the Church’s continuing journey towards synodality.
Rooting synodality in priestly formation
Father Marcel Uwineza SJ was also led participants in an exploration of synodality as a constitutive dimension of the Church, with particular attention to its place in seminary formation. Father Uwineza is a theologian and the principal of Hekima University College, a Jesuit institution in Nairobi, Kenya. He holds a doctorate in systematic theology from Boston College and has written extensively on theology, reconciliation, Christian anthropology and the experience of post-genocide Rwanda.
His work engages questions of how the Church can contribute to healing, reconciliation and the building of communities grounded in faith and mutual responsibility. These themes offer an important perspective for discussions about synodality, which calls the Church to cultivate relationships, listen to diverse experiences and discern its mission together.
A central question guiding the discussions was what new insights synodality brought to the formation of future priests.
Conversation in the Spirit as a tool for discernment
Another key element of the programme was the practice of Conversation in the Spirit, a method of prayerful listening and communal discernment that featured prominently in the Synod on Synodality. Father Orobator introduced the method, while Ms Caroline Kavita from the African Synodality Initiative demonstrated its practice. Father Uwineza then facilitated group work using the approach.
Conversation in the Spirit invites participants to reflect prayerfully, listen attentively to one another and discern what the Holy Spirit may be communicating through their shared experiences. The method encourages participants to make room for different perspectives rather than rushing to conclusions or seeking to impose individual opinions. It follows a process of personal preparation, attentive listening, prayerful reflection and collective discernment, with the aim of identifying convergences, recognising differences and discerning possible ways forward.
For those responsible for priestly formation, the method offers a practical means of helping seminarians develop the habits of listening, dialogue and discernment needed for pastoral ministry. The workshop’s emphasis on this approach reflects a broader call within the synodal process for formation that helps priests, religious and laypeople participate more meaningfully in the Church’s life and mission.
Preparing future priests for a synodal Church
The four-day gathering provides an opportunity for seminary leaders to consider how the Church’s synodal vision can become an integral part of priestly formation across the IMBISA region. The discussions are taking place within the wider implementation of the Synod’s Final Document, which calls for local Churches to develop formation initiatives appropriate to their cultural and pastoral contexts. For seminaries, this means preparing future priests to lead communities in which listening, participation, shared responsibility and discernment are part of everyday ecclesial life. The four-day workshop highlights the importance of ensuring that the next generation of priests is equipped not only to explain synodality, but also to embody it in the service of communion, participation and mission.
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