It is a glaring truth that the Catholic Church in Africa is Challenged to Send Pastoral Agents to “missionary-poor areas” on the Continent. As the Church in Africa continues to supply missionaries to other places in the world experiencing a decrease in personnel, attention must also be given to areas in Africa that equally have a shortage, the leadership of the Symposium of Catholic Bishops in Africa has appealed.
According to the President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo Besungu, certain places in Africa, especially the Northern and Southern regions of the continent, are in desperate need of more Priests.
In Northern African countries, for instance, the President of SECAM notes that the “once flourishing Christianity” has plunged to “zero” and needs re-evangelization.
In his message ahead of the July 28 and July 29 celebration of SECAM Day, Cardinal Ambongo acknowledges that the Church in Africa is taking part in evangelizing the world, but adds, “The same attention is requested for the missionary-poor areas within our continent, especially in the north and south of Africa.”
“The Catholic Church in Africa, born from the preaching of foreign missionaries, is also a Church in mission today, taking part in the evangelization of the world,” Cardinal Ambongo says in the message that was shared with ACI Africa on Thursday, July 17 and made available today to RECONA.
He acknowledges that the Church in Africa, through its various members, is supplying missionaries to other regions.
“As a gesture of recognition and gratitude, account should be taken of the European continent, whose missionaries have taken on the task of evangelizing the whole of Africa and which is now experiencing a decrease in personnel because of secularism that is driving more and more people away from the Church,” the Congolese Cardinal says, emphasizing that the African continent still has a lot of evangelizing to do as well.
In the message issued ahead of the SECAM Day, the President of the 55-year-old Symposium highlights the various ways in which the Church in Africa has grown, ranging from growth in vocations, in championing human development on the continent.
He notes that despite the “remarkable growth”, Africa continues “to hunger and thirst for Jesus and the Gospel.”
“Christians are 30 percent of the African population. So, since there are millions of African people not yet evangelized, it is essential and urgent for the Church in Africa to commit herself to the task of the first proclamation,” the Local Ordinary of Kinshasa Archdiocese in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) says.
For him, the Catholic Church in Africa has the responsibility of evangelizing those on the continent, who still profess the non-Christian religions. “The Catholic Church in Africa feels it must proclaim Jesus Christ to these non-Christians because they too have the right to know the riches of the mystery of Christ,” he says.
Congolese member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (OFM Cap), who was elevated to Cardinal during the October 2019 Consistory and reappointed to Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals (C9) after the expiry of the initial October 2020 mandate says that the mission of the people of God in Africa includes the task of the new evangelization of those already baptized.
He underlines the need to help those already baptized “to maturity of faith… so that they remain firm, even in times of crisis, and avoid looking for solutions either in African Traditional Religions or in Independent Churches.”
According to the Cardinal, the work of evangelization will only be effective if the Christian faith is deeply rooted in people’s way of life and touches people’s lives in the context of their culture.
The President of SECAM since February 2023 further notes that the lack of Christian rootedness “has reduced the once flourishing Christianity in North Africa to zero.”
In his message issued on July 17, Cardinal Ambongo also challenges the people of God in Africa to be proclaimers of the Good News of Jesus Christ amid the challenges they face on the continent.
“The African continent is full of problems: real poverty, political instability, violence, ethnic and religious conflicts, wars, terrorism, migration and refugees, bad governance, corruption, environmental degradation, trafficking in arms and drugs as well as people. There is despair and bad management of natural resources,” he says.
In the face of all the challenges, the Cardinal says, “The Church in Africa is called to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ which is hope, peace, joy, harmony, love, and unity because our continent is still hungry for Jesus Christ, who is the only source of true reconciliation.”
“The African Christian must take the Good News of Christ seriously to radiate that reconciling love of Christ, and at the same time become for others a source of peace and agents of reconciliation,” he says in his message in which he also describes the Church in Africa as “now an adult”.
Evangelization, the Congolese Cardinal insists, “must promote initiatives which contribute to the development and ennoblement of individuals in their spiritual and material existence and must denounce and combat all that degrades and destroys the person.”
He calls upon all members of the Church-Family of God in Africa to embrace the calling to proclaim the Gospel of Hope wherever they are, and in their various professions, including “Christians who are in positions where they exercise the power of the State, whether in the administration of public affairs or those who are activists in a political party.”
“Those working in the field of economics must assume their responsibilities by the dictates of the Gospel and thus become the leaven that transforms institutions and society from within, making the structures of sin, violence, corruption, and injustice disappear,” SECAM President says.
“Only in this way will the Church in Africa truly be the Family of God, where members are reconciled with God, with society and with each other,” he adds in his message in which he invites the people of God in Africa “to identify with and support SECAM” through “a special collection” on SECAM Day to be used to support the activities of the Symposium.
Established on 29 July 1969 during the first-ever Papal visit to Africa in Uganda, SECAM is the continental body of liaison, study, and consultation that promotes communion and collaboration between all the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar.
When July 29 falls on a weekday, the annual celebration of SECAM Day is moved to the nearest Sunday.
This year’s SECAM Day celebration to be marked on Sunday, July 28 also falls on the 60th anniversary of the canonization of the Martyrs of Uganda. The concurrence, Cardinal Ambongo says in his message, makes the SECAM Day special
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