A Synodal Campus Ministry In The Philippine Context

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Herminilito Luna

Abstract

Questions about what walking a synodal path means for the Church in different local contexts surely occupies a central place in academic and pastoral discussions regarding the currently convoked synod on synodality. A particular concern is how the youth can be actively involved in processes like this. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the campus ministry in living out and actively participating in the process of synodality in response to Pope Francis’ call for a Synodal Church. Vatican documents will be analyzed and compared with local Church and university documents for the purpose of this study. The result of this study reveals that despite the common vision of inclusivity in terms of “journeying together”, the local interpretation of synodality in the Philippines takes a different route. Moreover, Campus Ministry programs that could animate the youth to be engaged in the synodal process also fall short of providing appropriate avenues for the praxis of the synodal vision from the perspective of both the Vatican and the local context. Since the Church is both global and local, or “glocal” in nature this paper proposes an assimilation of the global and the local Church vision in navigating the synodal processes in the local context. Identifying the direction to which the Campus Ministry must walk also needs to be further identified. Thus, this study probes into the Synondal Campus Ministries in the Philippines. Researcher investigation goes deeper however in a specific context of De La Salle Araneta University or its Campus Ministry.

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