African Catholic missionaries serving in Africa have been challenged to become self-sustaining by promoting a new approach to mission that is less dependent on the West.

According to Fr. Ruffino Ezama, a member of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus (M.C.C.J) and Provincial Superior of the MCCJ in North America, it is time for the local Church in Africa to start looking inward to sustain herself, by at least raising 80 percent of what she needs financially to support its mission.

In an interview with Fr. Stan Chu Ilo on African Catholic Voices, a podcast service of the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN), Fr. Ezama said that the days when most missionaries came from Europe, bringing with them financial aid to Africa, are long gone.

The Ugandan-born missionary Priest described evangelization at a time when a vast majority of the Comboni Missionaries were from Italy as having been “a one-way effort”.

“Missionaries came from Europe to Africa, and whenever there were material needs, they would ask their relatives back in Europe to help them,” Fr. Ezama said in the March 14 interview.

Today however, he said, many missionaries come from African humble backgrounds where they do not have much financial support for their evangelization efforts.

In some cases, Fr. Ezama said, families expect their son who chooses to become a missionary to be the one to uplift them financially.

In the interview, Fr. Ezama and Fr. Stan explored the topic, “How to Evangelize Africa, by Africans through African Catholic Missionaries and African Resources.”

Fr. Stan observed that with the coming of European missionaries, also came financial support. He wondered, “Can missions from Africans to Africans survive in Africa without financial support from outside Africa?”

The Nigerian Catholic Priest, who serves as the Coordinating Servant of PATPAN said that even though the Church in Africa “is the new centre in terms of population”, it is still very dependent on external donations. “The Church in Africa is not-self-sustaining,” Fr. Stan said, and asked his conversation partner, “What then is the future of African mission by Africans to Africans?”

In response, Fr. Ezama said, “It is true that the limited resources are a challenge. But it is a challenge that we must turn into an opportunity.”

He said that Catholic Bishops in Africa “have been stressing the aspect of a ‘self-sustaining Church’, a Church where we have the potential.”

“We need to find a way through which we can tap into our potential without depending too much outside. We must strive to attain at least 80 percent of self-reliance locally,” the MCCJ member said, and challenged leaders in local churches to tap into “the resources that nature offers.”

He lauded Catholic Bishops’ Conferences and Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL) that have already found ways to sustain their communities through agricultural projects and businesses. He mentioned in particular Caritas Nairobi that has various economic empowerment programs in Kenya’s Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi.

“I was recently going through the website of the Archdiocese of Nairobi. They have Caritas Nairobi which has become a socio-economic window of the Archdiocese to reach to the grassroots and carry out a lot of initiatives, even at the level of Small Christian Communities,” Fr. Ezama said.

He added, “We have fertile land. We may not grow crops at the industrial level, but for the needs of our communities, it is possible and doable.”

Fr. Ezama, who has been to different places as a missionary, explored the joys, the challenges, and the opportunities of being an African missionary to fellow Africans, and to Europeans and North Americans.

Fr. Ezama’s mission as a newly ordained Priest in 1994 was to the Catholic Archdiocese of Cotonou in Benin, where he was the only African. Today, he said, MCCJ members in the West African nation are many, and that a significant number of Priests of the Italian-founded Congregation are Africans.

“When I arrived in Cotonou, there were only five members in our religious community. Four of them were Italian. I happened to be the only African. People were not used to seeing Africans become missionaries,” he recalled.

He added, “As I speak today, the province comprising Togo, Ghana, and Benin has over 90 members who are Comboni missionaries.”

He ministered in the Archdiocese of Cotonou for six years before going back to Uganda. In his native country, he worked for two years in a Parish that he said had an interesting characteristic. “The region I served in Uganda had 90 percent of Muslims, six percent of Catholics and four percent others.”

The Ugandan Comboni Priest also served as the vocations promoter in Uganda and was later assigned to North America, and then to the United States. He has also served in Canada.

Fr. Ezama recalled that while navigating financial hardships as a young missionary in Africa, he would find out the importance of Small Christian Communities (SCCs). He said it was SCCs that footed half of the bill of his Priestly ordination.

“At the time of my Priestly ordination, more than half of the money that was asked for the preparation and the feast was raised by Small Christian Communities,” he said, and added, acknowledging the importance of grassroots resource mobilization, “A big amount of money required is brought to the grassroots for the people to share it out.”

Day: March 20, 2025

A CALL FOR SELF-SUSTENANCE OF AFRICAN MISSIONARIES

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