AFRICA/GABON - "The decline in oil revenues is causing negative effects on social life", says President of the Episcopal Conference

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - The drop in oil prices is having a negative impact on social life in Gabon, one of the largest producers of crude oil in Africa. This is what His Exc. Mgr. Mathieu Madega Lebouakehan, Bishop of Mouila, in Rome for the ad limina visit, said to Fides during a brief interview.
What impact does the reduction in oil revenues, caused by the downturn of international crude oil prices, have in Gabon?
"The decline in oil revenues is having a negative impact in the Country and the socio-economic situation is affected heavily, as demonstrated by the numerous strikes in recent months.
We had strikes in almost all sectors: from health care to public administration, from customs to schools up to private companies. We have seen a staff reduction in various oil companies and this arouses strong concern in the Country".
Recently there have been riots over the death of André Mba Obame, one of the leading opponents of the Country, who died after a long illness, attributed to a "curse" carried out by the Presidency (see Fides 13/04/2015). How strong are these beliefs at a popular level?
"You have to know the social and anthropological substratum of the Country. The people are very religious, and the phenomena can have three matrices: they are either divine, or derive from witchcraft or are scientifically proven. In the face of a certain fact, at a popular level, if they cannot say that something has a divine origin and if you do not have scientific evidence to explain it, then it is said that it was a sorcery. Of course the Church does not encourage these beliefs and seeks to promote a Christian vision of life".
Today, what are the hopes and challenges of the Church in Gabon?
"The challenge for the Church in Gabon is the need to entrench even more our faith in Christ, in order to avoid mixing with both secularism and relativism, both beliefs that distance us from the Christian faith. Our hope comes from the many priestly and religious vocations as well as by many religious marriages".
How are the ecumenical and interreligious relations in Gabon?
"At an interreligious level with Islam we have no problems. With imams and other Muslim religious leaders we dialogue through formal and informal meetings. At an ecumenical dialogue level we have excellent relations with other churches that are manifested publicly, especially during the week of prayer for Christian unity, where we assist the celebrations of our Protestant brothers and vice versa. But with the so-called sects, some of Christian origin, there are difficulties, because they do not want dialogue, we are considered 'demons', and one knows that there is no dialogue with demons". (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 17/04/2015)