Asian Bishops’ meeting a “launchpad” for the Synod

By Joseph Tulloch

Fr. William LaRousse, the Assistant Secretary-General of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC), was in Rome recently for a conference of Synod organisers.

He spoke to Vatican News after the two-day meeting, and discussed the Asian Church’s engagement in the Synod so far, suggesting that the regional Bishops' Conference had served as a “launchpad” for the worldwide process.

Enthusiasm for the synod

Fr. LaRousse discussed the involvement of the various Bishops’ Conferences of Asia in the synodal process so far.

“We've received the reports from almost all of the Conferences,” he said. “It seems as though a good number of the Conferences got very involved very early on with the synodal process.”

He added that many of them were very eager to participate: “There seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm about it from the different conferences. And all seemed to have worked on it quite diligently.”

Regional conference a “launchpad” for the synod

The General Conference of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, which had been scheduled for 2020, ended up being delayed until October 2022.

The FABC General Conference thus came directly after the first stage of the synod process and directly before the second, a stroke of luck which Fr Larousse called “a gift of God.”

“I think in some ways it's like a launchpad to lead the Church and Asia into the second phase,” he said. “For example, [the President of] one of the conferences contacted me, and he said he's already had a meeting with the people from the 37 dioceses who are in charge of the synodal process, and they are already actively engaging the document for the Continental Stage.”

“So I think that's good and encouraging news," concluded Fr. LaRousse.