AFRICA - Extraordinary Missionary Month and Jubilee of SECAM: Africans the task to evangelize the continent

Kara (Agenzia Fides) - The Extraordinary Missionary Month, which will be celebrated in October 2019, will be preceded by the celebration of the Jubilee of the Bishops' Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), born in 1969: "It is a special occasion to resound once again the prophetic appeal that Pope Paul VI addressed to Africans in Kampala in July 1969: Africans should be missionaries towards themselves", explains the Ivorian theologian, Father Donald Zagore, of the Society for African Missions, to Agenzia Fides.
"If in the past thousands of Europeans came to Africa to evangelize - continues the missionary - today the Africans themselves should take on the responsibility of evangelizing the African continent. Africans have increased, the Church of Africa is now mature. Nobody, in the name of the mission, it will be able to speak and act for the Africans better than themselves".
"We have the duty and the task to carry on our shoulders the evangelical destiny of our continent. In fact, if in the past, in July 1969, this responsibility was presented to us by Pope Paul VI in the form of an appeal, today for us Africans it is an essential requirement. Yesterday's exhortation has become a requirement for today", emphasizes Zagore.
"The fundamental missionary conscience, at all levels, remains essential to give a completely different dynamic to missionary activity in Africa", explains Fr. Donald. And he concludes: "50 years later, we can say that the time of succession has really arrived. May this reality be concretized by a prophetic missionary commitment of the Christians of Africa". (DZ/AP) (Agenzia Fides, 1/7/2019)

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