Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Relator-General for the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, Archbishop of Cape Coast (Ghana), presented his Report Before the Discussion to the Synod Fathers on Monday, October 5. First of all, he recalled the First Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod, in 1994, and the guidelines that came out from it. “With the publication of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa, the Church in Africa received a new impulse and a new élan for its life and activity on the continent, as a missionary Church, namely, a Church with a mission.” The Synod gave the Church in Africa a new impulse based on the hope of the Risen Christ, “as a new impetus for living out her “programme” and evangelizing mission”; a new paradigm: the Church as Family of God; a unity of pastoral priorities: evangelization as a Proclamation, Inculturation, Dialogue, Justice and Peace...
Cardinal Appiah Turkson thus enumerated a series of social and ecclesial facts from the continent, showing, among other things, the signs of the Church's growth: the increase in African members of missionary congregations in positions and roles of guidance; the efforts for auto-financing on the part of local Churches; the increase in ecclesial structures and institutions; increase in experts and managers for research in the area of faith, missions, culture, and inculturation, history, evangelization, and catechesis. Among the “terrible challenges” of the Church in Africa is the fact that north of the Equator there is a very small presence; the fidelity and commitment of some priests and religious to their vocation; the need to evangelize (or re-evangelize); the loss of members who have gone over to new religious movements or sects. “Catholic youth travel outside (to Europe and America), and return non-Catholic, because they felt less at home in the Catholic Churches there.”
After offering a panorama on the various social, economic, and political aspects of the continent, Cardinal Appiah Turkson highlighted that “although the continent and the Church on the continent are not yet out of the woods, they can still modestly rejoice in their achievement and positive performance, and begin to disclaim stereotypical generalizations about its conflicts, famine, corruption and bad governance...The truth is that Africa has been burdened for too long by the media with everything that is loathsome to humankind; and it is time to “shift gears” and to have the truth about Africa told with love, fostering the development of the continent which would lead to the well-being of the whole world.”
In the second part of his address, the Cardinal reflected on “From Being “Family of God (evangelizers) to Being Servants (ministers=diakonoi) of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace.” Gathering from Biblical passages, he observed that “in a Church, which is a family in communion, reconciliation becomes not a state or an act, but a dynamic process, a task to be undertaken everyday, a goal to strive after, an unending setting out to re-establish, through love and mercy, broken friendships, fraternal bonds, trust and confidence.”
Speaking of the witness, which in “Ecclesia in Africa” Pope John Paul II exalted as “an essential element of missionary cooperation” to be salt of the earth and light of the world, Cardinal Appiah Turkson mentioned that “ the 'salt' symbol invites the Church-Family of God in Africa to accept to expend herself (dissolve) for the life of the continent and its people” and Jesus' expression “Your are the light of the world” expresses the lofty vocation of the disciples, “a call to fulfill, in Christ, Israel’s vocation in the Old Testament to be witness of the light of knowledge of God’s Law (Gospel) and of his salvation in the world.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 6/10/2009)
