VATICAN - Catholics and pastoral workers increase in Africa

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The "Catholic Church Statistics" that Fides publishes annually on the occasion of World Mission Day, taken from the latest edition of the «Church’s Book of Statistics», show that Africa is the continent with the highest number of positive variations compared to the previous year and also compared to other continents.
In Africa, Catholics increased by 5,290,000 units to 256,840,000. The total number of priests, diocesan and religious, increased by 1,004 to 50,465. Non-religious priests also increased by 103 members to 9,188, and women religious by 2,503 to 79,557. Also members of female secular institutes increased (+60 to 1.262), lay missionaries (+559 to 8.561) and catechists (+14.766 to 453.985).
The number of seminarians, both diocesan and religious, is also increasing: major seminarians number 33,628, an increase of 907, and minor seminarians number 52,411, an increase of 375. The only slight decreases on the continent concern the number of bishops (-2, religious), permanent deacons (-40) and members of male religious institutes (-14).
The trend in Africa, however, is not new, since it has been stable for some years, although with variations that do not substantially change the picture. A continent of first evangelization, still entrusted to the care of the Missionary Dicastery and the support of the Pontifical Mission Societies, thus expresses the vitality of the Church in contexts which would seem to be in total contrast to the flowering of the words of the Gospel: wars, emigration, hunger, corruption, human trafficking, terrorism, kidnappings, violence...
In human logic, these situations should easily lead, especially young people, to harden their hearts, to respond with force and violence to ensure domination over others at all costs. On the contrary, it happens that other, more constraining factors prevail in the lives of many young people. The spectacle of faith, hope and charity, encountered in the daily life of their family and community, draws their hearts to paths of joy and gratuitousness. "The places of origin of the young people who come to the seminaries are often rural or modest, from simple families and from a humble material situation", explains to Fides Father Guy Bognon, PSS, originally from Benin, Secretary General of the Pontifical Society of St. Peter the Apostle. Some of these young people experience poverty, become sensitive to the suffering of the needy, the sick, the voiceless, the abandoned, the humiliated, and feel deep within themselves the call to totally consecrate their lives at the service of these people. Having experienced the pain of difficult situations, they have acquired the capacity for silence, reflection, personal culture, spiritual life, prayer. They are more willing to listen to God's discreet and gentle call for their "availability".
Even in the African ecclesial context, of lights and shadows, difficult or contrasting situations, there are also Christian communities where these challenges are answered with faith, lived with fervor, with joy, without complex, without shame. "In these communities, people believe in the Catholic Church and its teachings without seeking to take only what pleases them, what reassures us, easily and unscrupulously rejecting what we consider difficult, harsh or outdated", emphasizes Father Bognon. In this context, pastoral agents, priests, men and women religious dialogue easily with young people, making them grow in the idea, through the testimony of life, that "an experience in the Church does not limit their freedom, but enriches it and helps them realize it more fully". And young people are the present and the future of the Church, not only in Africa. (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 21/10/2022)

Share:

missionary animation

---

---

evangelization

---

---

catholic church

---

---