The principle of participation in Catholic Social Teaching affirms everyone’s right to play a role in the economic, political, and cultural life of society. This paper aims to respond to the following questions: How has the synodal process contributed to the development of the principle of participation in Catholic Social Teaching? To what extent has this opened up a space for Asian women’s participation in the church and the recognition of their concerns? What are its strengths and limitations? For its methodology, the paper relies on Asian women theologians from Southeast, East, and South Asia as informed respondents and in related synodal and other documents. The theologians were participants in diocesan/national/Asian synodal consultations, international surveys, and discussions on the synod.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
DR. AGNES M. BRAZAL is Full Professor of Theology at the De la Salle University, Manila. She is author of “Synodality and the New Media” and co-editor of the anthologies Body and Sexuality: Asian Feminist Theological-Pastoral Perspectives (Ateneo de Manila Univ. Press, 2007), Feminist Cyberethics in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and the special issue of the journal Acta Theologica on the theme Towards Life-giving Communities in a Post-Pandemic World: Asian Feminist Theological Perspectives (2023). She was the Asian Regional coordinator of the Vatican project on “Doing Theology from Existential Peripheries” organized by the Dicastery in Promoting Integral Human Development and the Migrants and Refugees Section, 2021-2022. She obtained her STL/MA and STD/PhD in Theology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.