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Synod leaders: Church needs to get its house in order
'Selfishness, greed and ethnic conflicts are destroying our societies'
Oct. 06, 2009
Choir members from Africa sing after Pope Benedict XVI celebrated the opening Mass of the Synod of Bishops for Africa in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Oct. 4. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
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Grappling with how Catholicism in Africa can be a force for reconciliation, justice and peace, a handful of African bishops seemed to suggest today that in the first place, the church needs to get its own house in order.
In effect, these prelates suggested, it will be difficult for the African church to preach what it’s not seen to practice.
Cardinal Polycarp Pengo of Tanzania, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), told the Synod for Africa this morning that “selfishness, greed for material wealth and ethnicity resulting in ethnic conflicts” are “destroying the spiritual, social and moral fabric of our societies.”
That broad indictment, he said, may also apply in some cases to the church.
“There are allegations against some of our pastors being involved, either through omissions or even by direct commissions in these conflicts,” he said.
“In this synod, we must have the courage to denounce even against ourselves things like the misuse of the role and practice of authority, tribalism and ethnocentrism, [and] political partisanship of the religious leaders,” Pengo said.
The Synod for Africa is meeting Oct. 4-25 at the Vatican in Rome.
Among other remedies, Pengo called for a greater spirit of communion within SECAM. He noted that the African bishops had planned to hold a plenary assembly of SECAM in Rome prior to the Synod for Africa, but it had to be scrubbed due to a shortfall of roughly $270,000 – in part, he said, because many member conferences didn’t honor their financial commitments.
Ironically, the theme of that SECAM plenary was to have been “Self-reliance: The Way Forward for the Church in Africa.”
Bishop Lucas Abadamloora, president of the bishops’ conference in Ghana, raised the problem of communion at another level: between African prelates and their brother bishops in Europe and the United States.
“Our experience of the church in Europe and America, and even by some of our brother bishops and priests, suggests that we are second class family members, or that we belong to a different church,” Abadamloora said.
“The impression is created that we need them, but they do not need us,” he said. “Theory of fraternity and community is strong, but the practice is weak.”
Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Umtata, South Africa, also suggested that the problem of racism infecting the broader society may not be entirely absent from the inner life of the church.
Sipuka’s text was not made immediately available, but a Vatican briefer read the relevant line to reporters this afternoon.
“There are also indications that students of other races, especially white students, do not feel at peace with black students” in church-run seminaries, he said.
Sipuka apparently also said that sometimes at the parish level, it can be difficult to persuade people of different races and ethnic backgrounds to cooperate, for example by attending pilgrimage destinations together or taking part jointly in ordination ceremonies.
“The church must bring out a way of life based on reconciliation,” he said.
Why would one think that the
Why would one think that the racism and SEXISM that so infects the broader society are not entirely absent from the inner life of the church?
Sadly, the evidence shows that both are very much present in the church today.
Sister Maureen Paul Turlish SNDdeN
European ethnic loyalties
European ethnic loyalties tended to trump church loyalties, especially in the US at the time of the vast migration from all over Europe. Why else close proximity of various church buildings in major cities, each one with a different ethnic history --- and rivalry? I agree that the church cannot preach what it won't practice, but African churches don't need to feel inferior in this respect to European churches.
Racism, as well, has been endemic in the US church. One small case in point dealt with Archbishop Samuel Eccleston, P.S.S. Baltimore, late 1850s, and the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first congregation of women religious of African descent. The Abp tried to suppress this order because he was not comfortable with black sisters, even though his predecessor (Abp. Whitfield) had been nursed to health during a cholera epidemic by one of these sisters who subsequently perished from cholera.
See www.questia.com
It surely sounds to me like
It surely sounds to me like the experience of the Church in Africa may well teach lessons to the Church in first world nations. Certainly in America our church suffers from selfishness and greed for material wealth, aligning itself with similar interests in secular society.
This invaluable voice from
This invaluable voice from the Vatican, Mr. John Allen, reliably reports:
Bishop Lucas Abadamloora, president of the bishops’ conference in Ghana, raised the problem of communion at another level: between African prelates and their brother bishops in Europe and the United States.
“Our experience of the church in Europe and America, and even by some of our brother bishops and priests, suggests that we are second class family members, or that we belong to a different church,” Abadamloora said.
“The impression is created that we need them, but they do not need us,” he said. “Theory of fraternity and community is strong, but the practice is weak.”
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News for the good and wise, brave and holy Bishop:
A very similar phenomenon may be discovered here upon these present pages. It may not be so much that the church in America looks down upon the Roman Catholic Church active in Africa. Apparently from these pages we learn to our deep dismay the church in Anglo-America cannot even bear with one another, and so fulfill the Law of Christ. The practice and the theory of fraternity and community rarely comes upon the radar screen.
Where's the Love?
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
The issue of cultura
The issue of cultura differences will always be with us. I cannot and should not be eliminated, even in the name of "religion." Tolerance is not enough; assimilation is the goal but it is extremely difficullt to implement. It can never be enforced but applied pastorally by very openminded members of the ecclisial community.
Pax. Aristophilos
Yes, sad but true, cultural
Yes, sad but true, cultural differences will always be with us. LOVE, not tolerance is enough. Assimilation is NOT the goal; LOVE is the goal. Jesus taught us, and still we are ignorant...
1 Cor. 13:4 - 13
The African hierarchy are to
The African hierarchy are to be admired AND IMITATED in their honesty about "in-house" church practices that are in contradiction to Jesus' practices.
Racism in the Catholic
Racism in the Catholic Church? Sure! Just look what happened in 94, with the massacres in Burundi, with all the priests and nuns being implicated in them! and there are countless other instances, even in religious Orders. Let us not think that because the Church has grown fantastically in Africa in a hundred years, that all is now hunky-dory. Just the contrary. People may be baptised into the Church there, now they must be taught how to live as Jesus wanted them to do, as authentic Christian Catholics.
America needs this message
America needs this message more than Africa. Religious ideologies and political partisanship is ripping this country apart. If religion is to be part of the solution it must go back to basics, not dogma. It must return to those basics that bring peace, harmony, and people working for the common good of all.
The bishops in the U.S. have
The bishops in the U.S. have recently begun an initiative in response to the point that Bishop Abadamloora raises regarding solidarity. The USCCB Pastoral Solidarity Fund for the Church seeks to not only offer the "treasures" of U.S. Catholics (mainly through parish collections) but to be a vehicle whereby American Catholics can learn from the Africa experience and share in their "treasures" as well. In 2008 this fund supported 84 pastoral projects in 40 Countries on the African continent. It also involves pastoral solidarity visits. In late August early September Cardinal McCarrick, Bishop Ricard, and Bishop Wester visited the South Africa and Swaziland to offer Church leaders and pastoral workers support and to learn from their experiences.
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