Bishop Wanok to represent Ugandan Catholic Bishops in Rome for Synod on Synodality

By Francis Jjunju

11^th Sept 2023

The Vice Chairman of the Uganda Episcopal Conference (UEC) Rt. Rev. Sanctus Lino Wanok, is leaving to Rome to represent Uganda in the Bishops Conference summoned by the Pope to discuss the findings on the Synod on Synodality.

The 16^th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will start on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4 to 29, 2023).

Pope Francis announced the Synod on Synodality which is a three-year process of listening and dialogue beginning.

It was opened 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 2024.

Pope Francis invited the entire Church to reflect on a theme that is decisive for its life and mission: drawing from the Church’s “renewal” proposed by the Second Vatican Council held from October 1962 to December 1965, whose outcome is both a gift and a task: by journeying together and reflecting together on what has been made.

The Church will be able to learn through her experience which processes can help her to live communion, to achieve participation, to open herself to mission.”

According to the UEC Secretary General, Msgr. John Baptist Kauta, Bishop Wanok, who is also the ordinary of Lira Diocese, will listen to the presentations in Rome and return to Uganda to discuss its findings and the requirements with the rest of the Bishops and then go back in October 2024 for the final process.

It will be after the final sitting in 2024 that the rest of the Catholic Community will get to know the resolutions on the 2021-2024 Synod on Synodality.