WALKING WITH THE VICARIATE | KAIROS GLOBAL | AUGUST 2022

Author: Noel Benno

Intro: With contributions from Biju PC, Synodal Coordinator of JY UAE, Noel Benno writes about the Synodal Process at AVOSA and the JY contribution in it. 

What is the Synod?

The Synod on Synodality is a two-year process of listening and dialogue beginning with a solemn opening in Rome on October 9 and 10, 2021 with each individual diocese and church celebrating the following week on October 17. The synodal process will conclude in 2023. 

Pope Francis invites the entire Church to reflect on a theme that is decisive for its life and mission: ‘It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.’

www.usccb.org

In preparation for the Synod 2021-2023, Pope Francis has asked that every diocese undertake its own Synodal Phase of local consultations: through prayerful listening and discernment rooted in the Holy Spirit, the entire People of God is called to contribute to an undertaking by which the Church deepens in understanding of her mission and looks toward the future.

It has been a great privilege for the Jesus Youth movement to be a part of the synodal consultation by the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia (AVOSA) in the past couple of months. Since the Synod 2021-2023 is intended as a synodal process ‘to provide an opportunity for the entire People of God to discern together how to move forward on the path towards being a more synodal Church in the long-term,’ it was indeed a great opportunity to put to use our unique charisms and collate and share insights, hopes and dreams from communities far and wide in the vicariate. We were specifically requested to share two reports, one from within the movement on our thoughts on the path forward, and another on the migrant population in labour camps, quarries, fisher folk communities, professional workers, supermarket sales staff, and so on. Reaching out to the migrant population is of great significance since AVOSA is by very nature a migrant Church. In the words of Bishop Paul Hinder, we are ‘a Church composed of members coming from all parts of the world and living amid an Islamic society’ (Pastoral Letter 2007).

Along with supporting parishes across the vicariate to provide inputs for the consultation, we then set off to see and listen to the Church on the outskirts – labour camps, quarries and places we’d categorise as margins of society. In this way, JY was able to go into the depths of the real meaning of Synodality as seen in the logo of the Synod – kids, teens, youth, families and the clergy journeying together. We also reached out to include those who are no longer active in the faith, that we may understand what distances them from the Church and how we might accompany them. Moreover, this was a holistic process of meeting people in focus groups initiated by a small prayer, reflection with Word of God, and later explaining the synod and listening to them. Despite the restrictions caused by the pandemic, at the end of the process we could reach 1,630 people in the entire vicariate, through 109 consultation meet-ups. The real beauty was to see ourselves reaching out to places no other movement was able to. 

‘I’m 47 years old and this is the first time someone representing the Church has reached out to me to listen to my thoughts,’ said one of the participants. 1,630 might be a very small number compared to 1.3 billion Catholics across the world, but it is immensely beautiful to be part of a mission of the Pope and the Church to reach out to each and every Catholic in the world. 

Throughout the process there have been numerous instances and encounters with people from many walks of life. This is particularly interesting when we walk into labour camps where people are constantly on the move. We spent time with individuals who did not have the best of relationships with the Church due to past events, and once we made significant progress into these conversations, initiations of healing could be seen in these stressed relationships. We were even able to connect some of these individuals to the local parish so that they could take their healing process further ahead and experience faith in its fullness. 

We as a movement were able to reach out to the fringes and listen to people who had been away from the Church by distance, by faith, by heart and often by their minds for years if not decades. It is often eye-opening for such individuals, that the Church has now come looking for them where they are. The healing process is one of the most beautiful aspects of the whole journey towards Synodality. The goal was not just to conduct a synodal consultation but to go in search of souls who are away from and bring them back into the loving folds of the Catholic Church. 

We had a long term vision in mind when starting off this process. Some of the quarries we went to were in the hills, far away from the mainland. There have been many instances where people in labour camps were happily surprised by our enthusiasm and the hardship we underwent to reach out to them in the middle of a pandemic. These visits and the dialogue were a huge deal for them, living in an isolated camp away from their homes and families. 

In a fisher folk colony in Ras Al Khaimah (one of the seven emirates), the people showed no interest in the request for a synodal meeting. They had been staying away from all Church activities due to an incident that happened on Christmas day, two years back. The Church had arranged transportation for Christmas Holy Mass for a few of them only. That incident hurt them. Jesus Youth visited them as part of the synodal consultation which made them happy and the visit concluded with a dinner prepared by the fishermen. This synodal consultation process became a healing process for them. This incident was particularly mentioned in the vicariate report to the Vatican as well. 

One of the major hurdles we faced during some of these conversations was the doubt among the faithful whether the Church was truly listening to what they had to say. ‘Is the Pope really going to listen to our thoughts?’ This was the first response from many of the young adults. Approaching this from the perspective that they had things to share with us made it easy for us to open ourselves to some of these difficult conversations. It was such a wonderful experience to be listening to their issues, ideas and even hopes and dreams about the Church. We were also reasonably successful in convincing the participants of their significance, and that every voice was being heard. 

Role of Jesus Youth in the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia

The JY movement had its beginnings in Dubai in 1994; in 2019 we celebrated the Jubilee year. Growth was through outreach, which involved travel to the various emirates and continuous follow ups. In a matter of 3-4 years, we had presence in all emirates and are now the largest JY network after JY India. 

We are all happy about the fact that Jesus Youth has played a very significant role in the growth of the vicariate in terms of bringing more people closer to the Church and Christ. It is often said that it is Jesus Youth that takes the Church to people who are outside the walls of the church. This has been one of our biggest missions as a missionary movement which came to fruition with the Synodal consultations. A large number of these people who came closer to the Church and enriched their sacramental life and fellowship experience as a result of such initiatives are now active members of the Church. Sometimes it’d take years, but we continue with our mission to follow up. JY has also had very significant roles to play in vicariate level youth conferences such as the ACYC. Such events and gatherings have had a tremendous impact in bringing youth and teenagers closer to the Church. 

This year we are also focusing on reaching out to the multicultural Catholic population that reaches the UAE and we already have attendees from multiple nationalities in our gatherings. In terms of reaching out to other parts of the world, our mission area has always been Uganda and now the UAE Mission Team is supporting mission in Lebanon as well. Looking forward, some of the focus areas for JY UAE is 1) bringing back the vibrancy of JY in a post-pandemic world 2) multicultural outreaches 3) increase the significance in the vicariate. In addition to this, we hope to grow the campus ministry further and maybe even organize a campus meet. 

We hope and pray that the Holy Spirit guides the movement as he has always done in the past.

Biju PC resides in Fujeirah, UAE with his wife and their three children. He is also the animator of JY UAE National Council.

Noel Benno is a technology strategy consultant by profession and lives in Thrissur, India with his wife Minu Santhosh.