Ghana’s Bishops say Advent’s watchful hope and Synodality’s communal listening can transform Church and society, fostering justice, peace and solidarity.
Newsroom (03/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) In a poignant Advent message released on November 28, the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) has drawn a profound connection between the liturgical season of expectant waiting and the Church’s ongoing synodal journey, presenting both as complementary forces for spiritual renewal and societal transformation.
Signed by GCBC President Bishop Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi of Sunyani Diocese, the two-page pastoral letter emphasizes that synodality is far more than “an administrative slogan.” Rather, it is “a spiritual disposition” that demands “courageous listening, patient dialogue, and communal discernment.”
In Ghana’s context of injustice, inequality, and fragile social trust, the bishops argue, “the synodal path becomes an instrument of justice and peace.” They contend that authentic synodality forms “a moral imagination capable of resisting corruption, strengthening solidarity and protecting the vulnerable.”
Citing data gathered by Justice and Peace structures across West Africa, the bishops note that participatory approaches have significantly built community trust and reduced conflict—by nearly a third in some areas over the past decade. These findings, they say, demonstrate that “when the Church models synodality, she becomes a leaven for national transformation.”
The message frames the current synodal moment as carrying “profound moral and spiritual implications,” inviting Christians to rediscover mutual responsibility and resist the drift toward individualism in families, parishes, and Church institutions.
Advent, the bishops explain, intensifies this synodal invitation by reminding the faithful that “history is directed not by human complacency but by the promise of God’s future.” The season’s call to vigilance, they insist, safeguards both individual conscience and communal life.
“When the Church in Ghana lives synodally,” the letter states, “she strengthens her mission as a companion to society,” encouraging just governance, reconciled relationships, and peace grounded in justice.
Such public witness, the bishops stress, requires Christians formed by Advent’s spiritual discipline: watchfulness, humility, charity, and hope. “If we allow this season to shape us,” they write, “we will be prepared not only for the Lord’s glorious return but also for his daily visitations—moments that call us into deeper communion with God and neighbour.”
In these encounters, the bishops say, “justice becomes more than an aspiration, peace more than rhetoric, and the Church a credible sign of God’s reign unfolding in contemporary Ghanaian life.”
Describing Advent as a “school of communion and mission,” the bishops summon the Church to stand “at once in expectancy and in fidelity.” They invite Ghanaian Catholics to welcome Christ with “patient attentiveness” so the nation may become “a people formed by hope, builders of peace and servants of the common good.”
The message concludes with a visionary image: a synodally renewed Church in Ghana standing “as a lamp set upon a hill, proclaiming by word and deed that the Lord is near and that his kingdom already stirs within those who watch, pray and walk together in faith.”
- Raju Hasmukh with files from ACI Africa
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