Dear brothers,

Tomorrow, we will gather to celebrate the 165th anniversary of the foundation of the Society of African Missions. I am sure that on this day that falls on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, all of us will do our best to meet and spend it together - in our parishes, our communities, our houses of formation or retirement homes and in our families.

With the other members of the General Council, I would like to express our gratefulness to God and share with all of you gratitude for the gift of the missionary vocation in the SMA and also for the renewed dedication to give the best of our energies to the proclamation of the Good News in the whole world, especially to the most abandoned populations of Africa.

This year, we celebrate the 8th of December under the sign of synodality. In fact, last October, the synodality path began in Rome and in each local church, under the title: “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission”. The celebration of the sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2023 will be an arrival and a starting point. It will be followed by the implementation phase which will again involve the local churches. The preparatory document quotes a fundamental statement of Pope Francis: “The path of synodality is precisely the one that God expects of the Church in the third millennium”.

Synodality is not just another pastoral goal. Rather, it is a call to the Church to rediscover her deepest identity: the people of God who walk together, a community of disciples united by the new commandment, a people where the word of God grows and spreads with energy and joy, as the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles testify”.

I am sure that each of you and each community will take an active part in the process at the local level. The General Council has been asked to prepare a synthesis, answering a fundamental question: “In a synodal Church, which proclaims the Gospel, everyone walks together. How is this “walking together” realised today in the Society of African Missions? Which further steps is the Spirit inviting us to take in order to grow in our “walking together?”

First, let us have a quick look at some statistics concerning our Society. It is composed of about 765 permanent members, working in its 27 units. In the last 6 years, we have had 123 new priests ordained. In the same period, 132 of our members have died. Last year, the year of the pandemic, the number of confreres who have died was higher than usual: 33 members, against an average of about 20 members per year.

For several decades we have been experiencing a remarkable sharing between our units for the sake of the mission: a sharing of financial resources and a sharing of personnel.

Next year, the mid-term Plenary Council will be held in Poland at the beginning of June.

For the first time all units will contribute to the common budget as requested by the last General Assembly.

At the same time, it happens that almost 70 members of the new units are officially working as incorporated members of the ‘ancient’ Provinces. In all that, we can see the concept of synodality already functioning in our structures.

In our Society we have structures and traditions calling us to co-responsibility and participation of each one at all levels: in parishes between confreres and between priests and faithful, in the leadership team of each country; with a coordinating role, increased by GA2019, played by the General Council, in our Assemblies and our Plenary Councils. The need for listening, participation, dialogue and community discernment is great. Generous, loyal and orderly collaboration between all is the way to true synodality.

We have a remarkable number of students in formation. From the first year of philosophy to the end of theology, there are 334 of them, in 12 Houses of formation, supervised by 33 formators. How do they live and prepare themselves for a synodal Church?   How do they envisage being priests and missionaries in a Synodal Church? With what vision of community of faith, of participation of the people of God, of mission to the most abandoned peoples?
Soon, in January, in Abidjan, there will be an important meeting concerning the state and perspectives of our formation.

Synodality for us means openness and collaboration with all those who share our missionary tradition. I would like to recall here the journey “On the Way to 2026” that we are making with the OLA Sisters. The SMA-OLA Commission has received more than 600 responses to the questionnaire and the work is ongoing.
This collaboration, too, allows us to do a synodal discernment in our endeavour to implement today the missionary call confirmed by the Spirit in the heart of our Venerable Founder this day 165 years ago.

Happy feast and celebration to you all.

Fr. Antonio Porcellato, SMA