The Parish of Sts. Peter and Paul held a Synod on “Truth, Freedom, Charity and Grace” from 22-24 September 2016. Some three hundred delegates representing the faithful of the Catholic Church attended this 3 day Synod. The gathering was facilitated by Bishop Olivier Schmittaeusler of the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh.

Bishop Olivier said, “This year is the Jubilee Year of Mercy and we have focused our attention on promoting love, compassion, and forgiveness to make us understand that we are Catholics living in the present society in order to put into practice what we have learnt.”

“The aim of this synod is to get the Catholics to find ways to build the nation by starting from each one of us. To create a nation we have to love one another, promote peace with each other”. He further said, “The model of kindness for the poor showed by Mother Theresa, who was canonized a saint on 4th September 2016 is a wonderful motive for us as the Catholic Church in Cambodia.” Bishop Olivier also invited all the Catholics to become ambassadors of peace with each other in accordance with the love of God.

Miss Srey Mao, a Catholic serving the pastoral office for labour, said, “The synod was of importance for each one of us, who are the strength of the Church in order for us to go deep into the Jubilee Year of Mercy by valuing other people. We understood love, encouraging each other learning how to live with good intentions, justice and showing the participants that they do have the freedom of life and love with people around them.”

The participants have learnt to understand from this pastoral assembly about social services and the way the current world has changed. Bishop Olivier explained that each person has dignity because God created them in His image. He stressed that Catholics have to think of the common good by respecting each individual, doing whatever to bring about well-being in society and promote peace.

Bishop Olivier added that all persons have a right to use all goods in the world that are considered common possessions. For example food, which the public are eligible to receive. So the Catholics have the power to encourage those who hold power to share their goods with other people, especially food. He also emphasized that each society has to support one another and those who hold higher ranks have to help those who are below them for the common good. All people have to be responsible for and contribute to share works with free will and care for developing cultures and human resources with intensity.

Bishop Olivier continued by saying, “The solidarity of people is also of importance because it can reduce tension making it easy to resolve disputes. The crucial factor is that the poor are united so that the rich will unite with the poor, workers unite with their bosses and all staff unite with one another This will result in us inculcating social morality and international unity and hence, making the nations promote peace in the world.”

Furthermore, Bishop Olivier instructed and reminded the Catholics to take part in implementing the seven priorities, which include education, health, the disabled, workers’ issues, protecting the environment, the integrating of the poor into society, and inter-faith dialogue.

This was the third pastoral assembly (Synod) in the Diocese of Phnom Penh since 2014 and this assembly coincides with the Jubilee Year of Mercy.