Synodality and the Church of the Poor: Analyzing a Local Church Walking with its People through Pastoral Actions

Abstract

Throughout the ministry of Christ, he was described to be walking with His people. Currently, the Church as a sacrament of God’s presence in the world continuously aspires to walk with God’s people. Staying true to this calling, Pope Francis invited the entire Church to enter into a Synod on Synodality. The Holy Father invites the entire Church to journey and reflect together so as to discover processes that can help to live in communion, achieve participation and be open to its mission. This paper aims to analyze how the Church can become a real Church of the Poor through its pastoral care plans and actions. To serve as the main framework of this research, the researcher decided to use the “See-Discern-Act Framework”. Regarding the “See” part, this paper will look into the current perspective and status of the faithful towards their local Church as reflected in the data of the Synthesis Report on Synodality of the Archdiocese of San Fernando and by looking into the responses of the members of a local church regarding their experience of their parish’s pandemic pastoral program. For the “Discern” part, this paper will use various Church documents that address concerns regarding Synodality, Church of the Poor and Pastoral Ministry. Lastly, for the “Act” part, this paper will try to propose possible Pastoral programs that can help the Archdiocese of San Fernando in pursuing the next steps of their mission in Synodality–doing follow through to the products of their Synthesis Report on Synodality.