Pune: Pope Francis is paying the price of prophetic as his stress on a paradigm shift in Christian living has upset those entrenched in power, says a noted Asian theologian. By not traveling the ‘highway of theological debates’ but relocating the poor as ‘theological center,’ Pope Francis has unsettled those who concoct rootless theologies, Father Felix Wilfred told an international, interdisciplinary symposium on Vatican II.
The founder-director of the Chennai-based Asian Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies was the keynote speaker for the November 29-30 symposium at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) in Pune, the cultural capital of Maharashtra state. The theme of the program was ‘Towards Renewing Church and World: Revisiting Vatican II through the Eyes of Pope Francis.’ The symposium was co-hosted by JDV and the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India’s (CCBI) Commission for Theology and Doctrine.
It drew insightful inputs from bishops, scholars, lay faithful and grassroots activists from diverse disciplines and varied backgrounds from India, Sri Lanka, and the United States.
Apart from the keynote and plenaries, the parallel sessions had 30 papers depicting how Pope Francis has fostered Vatican II agenda with Asian-Indian flavor in eight domains: (i) contextual theology emerging from reality, not speculation; (ii) socio-political, global involvement; (iii) option for the poor and the periphery; (iv) family/married, youth and consecrated life; (v) priestly vocation and clericalism; (vi) theology-science dialogue; (vii) ecumenism and interfaith initiatives; and (viii) care for our ‘common home’.
Meanwhile on November 29, while addressing Vatican’s International Theological Commission, Pope Francis defined synodality as “a style of walking together,” which is “what Christ expects of the Church in the third millennium.” MattersIndia.com
