VATICAN - Three priorities for the Bishops of Tanzania on ad limina visit: the family, the clergy and the common good of society. The Pope writes his message at Gemelli Hospital “where I offer my prayers and suffering for you”

Monday, 14 March 2005

Vatican City (Fides Service) - “While I regret that I cannot receive you in the Vatican at this time, nevertheless I gladly welcome you, the Pastors of the Church in Tanzania, on your visit ad limina Apostolorum. I greet you all from Gemelli Hospital, where I offer my prayers and my sufferings for you: in these days I feel especially close to you.” This was how Pope John Paul II began his message written for the occasion of the ad limina visit of Bishops from Tanzania and addressed to Cardinal Polycarp Pengo, Archbishop of Dar-es-Salaam and Bishop Severine Niwemugizi of Rulenge, President of the Tanzanian Bishops’ Conference whom he received at the Gemelli Hospital on 11 March.
“As I address you for the first time in this new millennium, in consideration of your Quinquennial Reports, I wish to speak with you about three integral parts of your pastoral ministry: care of the family, care of the clergy, and care for the common good of society in your region.”. “The world can learn much from the high value that is placed upon the family as a building block of African society. Today the Church is called to give special priority to the pastoral care of the family, because of the great cultural changes taking place in the modern world”. The Pope underlined the need to safeguard in the light of the Gospel “values essential for the health and well-being of society”, and in this regard he mentions “the unjust practice of linking programmes of economic assistance to the promotion of sterilisation and contraception”. He recalled the matrimony for Christians is “one and indissoluble by nature” and “the promotion of genuine family values is all the more urgent on account of the terrible scourge of AIDS afflicting your country and so much of the African Continent. Fidelity within marriage and abstinence outside it are the only sure ways to limit the further spread of infection. Communicating this message must be a key element in the Church’s response to the epidemic.”
With regard to care for their respective clergy, John Paul II reminded the Bishops that they are called to be "father, brother and friend" to their closest co-workers, and to help them “grow in holiness and in single-hearted commitment to discipleship”. He urged the Bishops to “continue to encourage them in their gifts, sustain them in their difficulties and form them to meet the demands of priestly life today”. With regard to formation, which must be entrusted to the best priests, he said Bishops are called to exercise “exercise particular vigilance” on spiritual formation: “Only a commitment to prayer, rooted in a mature understanding of the priest’s personal configuration to Christ, will enable him to practise the generous self-giving in pastoral charity to which he is called”.
The third priority highlighted by the Pope was concern for the common good. “you have already taken important steps to combat the material deprivation afflicting so many of your people” John Paul II said commending “cooperation between Church and State on matters of great social concern” and he urged the Bishop to continue to exercise pressure to obtain “concrete measures designed to alleviate poverty and to increase educational provision”. Tanzania has already helped to build peace and stability in east Africa by welcoming thousands of refugees fleeing persecution in their own country, and so the Pope said he hoped the country would “continue to extend this Christ-like welcome”. At the end of his message the Pope mentioned one particular challenge “to maintain and strengthen respectful relations with the Muslim community, especially in the Zanzibar archipelago” and he called on the Bishops, “to look to the future with confidence”, to pray for preparations for the 2nd Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Africa and to always strive “to evangelise the culture of your people in such a way that Christ speaks from the heart of your local churches with a truly African voice..” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 14/3/2005; righe 44, parole 607)


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