Masaka Catholic Diocese has taken to social media platforms to solicit public views on the proposals in the administration of the Church.
In October last year, Pope Francis launched a worldwide consultation exercise he named “Synod on synodality”; to gather views on the reforms that lay Christians and other members of the public would wish to see in the Church management.
Last month, Bishop Severus Jjumba launched the consultation exercise in Masaka Diocese. Five centres where the Christians will gather to submit their proposals to the coordination committee were set up.
Reverend Father James Ssendege, the Masaka Diocese Pastoral Coordinator who is also leading the local consultation teams, says in addition to physical meetings they have also resorted to social media platforms as a medium of receiving the views.
He explains that they have established that a reasonable number of people may fail to physically participate in the synod process due to their busy schedule and distance challenges, yet they also have their views.
He says that they created two WhatsApp platforms, Facebook pages, which are open to the public to submit their views.
According to Fr. Ssendege, social media platforms are also giving the public the opportunity to freely express themselves.
Fr Ssendege adds that the consultation process is also open to non-Catholics who include Muslims, who the Pope also invited to make recommendations on how they can strengthen their relationship and promote mutual respect, despite the different religious ideologies.
Reverend Father Ronald Mayanja, the Diocesan Communications Coordinator who is in charge of Social media platforms says, on average they receive 400 submissions via Whatsapp, in form of submission. He explains that messages are then downloaded and recorded in their registers and later submitted to the committee.
Maria Nakivumbi, one of the Secretaries to the Synod coordination’s committee says the process is receiving very high participation, which shows that many people have several views but lacked the platform of airing them out.
The consultation process at the levels of the diocese is expected to be completed in April this year, and later the views will be forwarded to the national collection centre at the Catholic Secretariat in Nsambya, where they will be scrutinized and later sent to Rome for consideration.
