The Pune Ecclesiastical District will have an assembly on 22nd June 2019, carried out once in every five years – a consultative body to form the pastoral plan for the next five years, held in different stages with a central theme. The topic selected for this assembly is ‘Grace filling families’ by the bishops of the Malankara Catholic church.
An assembly is conducted at the parish level to get a sense of what change in families needs to be brought about, and what reforms in the church are needed to do that. The suggestions are incorporated and then a Forane level assembly is called, which is the gathering of the priests, sisters and 2 lay representatives of each parish belonging to the specific Forane. There are classes taken on the topic and then there are brainstorming sessions. Again they strategize especially in the context of their respective districts as to what can be done in the churches with regard to the theme and also any and every other topic related to the church is discussed. This is the zero hour when anything regarding the church can be discussed.
All the suggestions of the forane go to the diocesan assembly and the diocesan assembly passes a resolution of what can be implemented and that resolution is later discussed by the bishop with his Curia and implemented. These suggestions are then sent to the church level assembly which is a higher body that constitutes of representatives of all the dioceses of the Syro Malankara Church. It holds the assembly at the major archiepiscopal center in Trivandrum where suggestions from various dioceses are discussed with brainstorming sessions as they finally pass out resolutions which are implemented later by the Synod, as the Synod decides on it. The assembly is a consultative body. The aim of the assembly is to provide consultation to the synod in relation to pastoral programs of the church. The synod, headed by the major archbishop, takes the final decision and legislates.
