AFRICA/GHANA – Bishops launch the African Year of Reconciliation

Accra (Agenzia Fides)- The Catholic Bishops of Africa launched an African Year of Reconciliation during celebrations for the 46th anniversary of the founding of the Symposium of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM/SCEAM), on 29 July in Accra, capital of Ghana, where SECAM has its headquarters.
The African Year of Reconciliation which will close 29 July 2016, during the 17 SECAM Assembly in Luanda (Angola), was recommended by Benedict XVI in the post synodal exhortation Africae Munus.
Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, sent a letter on the part of SECAM chairman Archbishop Gabriel Mbilingi of Lubango (Angola), to the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of all Africa, encouraging them to a promote “programmes and initiatives for reconciliation in cooperation with the respective Justice and Peace Commissions ”.
Presenting the event archbishop Palmer-Buckle said that during the African Year of Reconciliation SECAM will organize a series of workshops and seminars at the continental and regional level. “The promotion of reconciliation will have an ecumenical outreach as well as involving all other religions in Africa,” Archbishop Palmer-Buckle revealed and appealed to governments and international organizations in Africa as well as Partner Agencies “to help in the efforts towards attaining a more reconciled Africa.”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 4/8/2015)