Clericalism and Synodality: Towards a Listening Church through an African Ethics of Ubuntu

Abstract

Clericalism, a misleading conception that the clergy are the empowered “owners” of the church compared to the laity, disrupts the spirit of synodality that calls for communion, co-responsibility and full participation of the faithful in the life and mission of the church. The paper utilizes scholarly writings, encyclical letters, biblical insights, and the authors’ experience. It proposes ethics of synodality, reflected in the African concept of Ubuntu, as a contribution to developing new dialogical and collaborative structures in the Catholic Church. Ubuntu ethics describes, among other things, an inherent impulse or “inner voice” that compels each human being to become each other’s keeper. To have Ubuntu is to be compassionate, open-minded, humble, considerate and attentive to the needs and well-being of fellow human beings. Ubuntu ethics, as a sense of togetherness, strongly opposes the mentality of “superiority” and “inferiority” that broadly characterizes the phenomenon of clericalism. It inspires “equitable collaboration” through inclusive dialogue and collective discernment. Embracing the spirit of Ubuntu may empower clerics and the laity to establish a listening church that takes Jesus as the model of the listener and joyfully fulfils her redemptive mission of making this world a better place to live in.