A Congolese cardinal has described the Church in Africa as “a champion of human development”, saying the Church is making up for state deficiencies in many places. Source: OSV News.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa, Congo, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar spoke as African bishops’ conferences celebrated SECAM Day, observed each year in July, commemorating SECAM’s foundation in 1969.
SECAM bishops met with secretaries-general of the episcopal conferences of Africa and its islands for the 55th anniversary of the inauguration of the organisation in the capital of the Republic of Congo, Brazzaville, on July 24-29.
Cardinal Ambongo said that without the Church, “there would be no life, no hope and no future” in several places in Africa that experience “absence of state provision”.
The Church, the Cardinal said, “is concerned with the education and health of its people”, providing training centres and health facilities.
“The Church has been involved in the work of being the voice of the voiceless and advocating for the reduction or cancellation of the unjust debt burden of the African people,” Cardinal Ambongo said.
In a statement released prior to the meeting in Brazzaville, Cardinal Ambongo recalled the words of St Paul VI, the pontiff who blessed SECAM’s inauguration: “You Africans are missionaries to yourselves.”
Cardinal Ambongo said the Catholic Church in Africa has since grown strong, and today represents 18 per cent of the continent’s population, with around 256 million believers.
“It is in Africa where the Catholic Church is experiencing record growth,” Cardinal Ambongo said.
He said the “Catholic Church in Africa has taken root and is now an adult Church: most of the hierarchy in Africa now comes from indigenous clergy,” and that “there is a growing number of African religious involved in leadership positions” in international missionary societies.
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The Church is the life, hope and future for many Africans (By Ngala Killian Chimtom, OSV News)
