Diocesan Synod gets down to final business

HONG KONG (SE): The Tenth Plenary Assembly of the Diocesan Synod was held on October 25 at the Diocesan Centre with over 130 members present.

At the meeting all emended draft resolutions were voted on for the second time and adopted. The diocese will decide their implementation.

In this vote, the concrete proposals had to be approved by a two-thirds majority after which Fathers John Russell and Lawrence Lee were given the task of scrutinising all the draft proposals, to check whether they were consistent with church doctrine and Canon Law.

The various committees were asked to check the consistence between Chinese and English versions of their proposals and hand in the finished versions within three weeks.

Before the second vote some emended controversial proposals left over from the last meeting passed with the simple majority required by the first vote. Among them, the proposal from Group Four (Evangelisation ad gentes) received only 68 assenting votes, which was the lowest of all the groups.

Other emended proposals which attracted low assenting votes were a proposal for the establishment of a Catholic University by group 6 (Education and culture) 77 votes; a recommendation that "every priest should encourage at least one young person to enter the seminary" by group 7 (Vocation and Continuing Formation for Diocesan Priests) 88 votes.

Social concern recommendations received little support largely because most members of the synod doubted their feasibility. Among these were a proposal for the diocese to set up an organic farm (82 votes); and the proposal to set up a parochial pastoral committee for the family.

During the voting the atmosphere was punctuated by light moments when members of the synod expressed their feelings over the length of the process and the impossibility of some of the proposals.

A total of 40 will be selected from the 177 concrete proposals and these will be announced on November 20.

Of these, a final ten will be selected as priorities of the diocese.

The closing of the synod originally scheduled for January 20, 2002 at the Little Sai Wan Sports Stadium is now rescheduled to take place at the Cathedral on December 30, 2001.