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Pope: “Church in Africa, the leaven of reconciliation” |
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05/10/2009 (1:33)
"The vocation of the Church, a community of people reconciled with God and with each other, is to be a prophecy and a ferment of reconciliation between different ethnic, linguistic, and even religious" groups throughout Africa. That was the message at the heart of Pope Benedict's homily during mass to open the Second Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Africa, held in St. Peter Basilica’s.
In front of 244 Synod Fathers who, from October 5th until October 25th, will compare notes on "The Church in Africa in the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace", Benedict XVI recalled that in its work of evangelization, the Church in Africa can make a great contribution to the whole of society, which sadly experiences in many nations poverty, injustice, violence, and wars.
Africa is a huge spiritual "lung" for a humanity that is in crisis of faith and hope. But even this "lung" can get sick. Two dangerous diseases are eroding it, said the Pope, practical materialism, combined with relativistic and nihilistic thinking, and religious fundamentalism, mixed with political and economic interests, a "spiritual toxic waste" exported from "first" world.
The Synod, Pope Benedict XVI concluded, is the right opportunity for a rethink of pastoral activities in order to build the Church as God's family, renew the momentum of evangelization, and attempt to make the difference between ethnic groups a motive and stimulus for mutual human and spiritual enrichment.
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