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H. Exc. Mons. Raymundo DAMASCENO ASSIS, Archbishop of Aparecida, President of the «Latin American Episcopal Council» (C.E.L.AM.) (BRAZIL)
1. First of all, as President of the Latin-American Episcopal Council CELAM, I wish to particularly thank, the Holy Father Benedict XVI for having invited me to participate in this Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops. It is a privilege for me, a Bishop of Latin-America, to share in the path of our Church, one, holy, Catholic and apostolic, in the African continent. I would like to follow this Synod with great attention, openness and prayer.
At this time, I would like to express solidarity to the Latin American Episcopate and Church, to our dear brothers, Bishops,, and to the whole Church that are on a pilgrimage in the African Continent.
We are here not only to express our brotherhood with the Church in Africa, but also to learn, as we are convinced that the conclusions of this Second Special Assembly will also help the Latin American Church in its mission of reconciliation and in the search for justice and peace.
2. Africa and Latin America are very different continents, nevertheless it is important to know that in Latin America we have a large population of African origins, more numerous than the population of our own original people, the indigenous. Another thing unites us – in the Cross – the fact that in both continents we have a high rate of our population living in poverty, and needing material things and services for their basic survival: food, housing, education and health.
From the political and institutional field, a democracy sufficiently rooted in the culture of our people does not exist, and because of this, it is not strongly consolidated. The unresolved, basic and urgent needs of the majority of our people cause the emergence of political ventures, with populist promises, which delude, but do not solve the structural problems of the population.
Also, the situation is worsened in the political field because of corruption, frequently reported and denounced by different organizations of mass media. This phenomenon leads the population, especially the young people, to conformity and to a sceptical attitude towards politics as the art of promoting the common good.
3. The new world conscience of cultural pluralism awakens new attention and representation in Latin America of our poor autochthonous and African descendants. This indicates the importance for a special effort of evangelization and inculturation. In the Concluding Document of the Fifth General Conference, in Aparecida in the year 2007, we can read: “Indigenous people and Afro-Americans are now taking their place in society and the Church. This is a kairos for deepening the Church’s encounter with these sectors of society who are demanding the full recognition of their individual and collective rights, being taken into account in Catholicism, with their cosmos vision, their values and their particular identities, so as to live a new ecclesial Pentecost.” (DA 91)
The Latin American Church did not undergo such great and dramatic ruptures as did the black African Church. For this reason, there was more continuity in the experience of the Church, even if with suffering and faults and, because of this, she has a varied and rich history. Today, we can find a more stable pastoral experience, whose richness was expressed during the last fifty years in our five General Conferences – of a different nature than the Synods – and today, in the vast Continental Mission which has as its objective placing the Latin American Church in a permanent state of mission. The documents of these five General Conferences have always given special attention to the native and Afro-American farmers in the different pastoral priorities.
4. In this intervention, I would like to suggest some points that could be a theme for dialogue for a possible fraternal exchange between the Churches of both Continents. From the episcopal point of view, we could share with Africa the great wealth of the 54 years of existence of the episcopal organization I represent, the Latin American Episcopal Conference – CELAM, as instrument of the episcopal communion and mutual service within our Episcopacy. The mission of the Church could be enriched through an exchange of the collegial, pastoral and organized experience, invited as Bishops of the Catholic Church present in both continents and supported by the Holy See. The already existing experience of dioceses and religious congregations that send missionaries to the Church in Africa could also be extended.
As pertaining to seminarians and priests, I also think that it would be possible and mutually enriching, to offer seminaries for the first period of sacerdotal formation in some of the particular Churches in Latin America, with greater resources. It would be an occasion to, along with other advantages, learn other languages which could be used to promote the exchange and the communion between the two continents with such a vast Catholic presence.
Speaking for the CELAM, we would also welcome, with the approval of the Holy See, in our Pastoral and Biblical Institutes, existing in the CELAM in Bogota, priests and consecrated persons, or pastoral agents, for courses on formation.
5. I would like to renew my gratitude to the Holy Father and to the dear brothers, Bishops of Africa, for having been invited to this kairos, a time for grace and conversion which is the II Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops. May Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen and Patroness of America, guide us during this Special Assembly and help, with her maternal protection, the Church in Africa on the path of reconciliation, justice and peace, with the participation of society.
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H. Exc. Mons. Wilton Daniel GREGORY, Archbishop of Atlanta (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA)
I welcome this opportunity to summarize the importance that this Second Synod for Africa holds for the Church in the United States of America. We Americans find ourselves increasingly drawn in by issues and events that occur on theAfrican continent. We, like people everywhere, feel ever more acutely the impact of the intensifying global character of our world.
First and foremost, we praise Almighty God for the gift of the One Faith that binds the Church in the United States to all of the other Churches throughout the world. Our Catholic community has benefitted directly during the past generation from a growing number of clergy and religious from the great African Continent who now serve Catholics throughout our nation and who serve them generously and zealously. We know through their presence of the deep faith and generosity of the Church in Africa.
The Church in the USA is also deeply grateful for the opportunity to assist the local Churches in Africa. through the support of Catholic Relief Services, by the many and varied missionary· cooperative ventures that·spring from the generous heart of our people and frequently bind diocese to diocese and parish to parish in mutual prayer, financial assistance, and by personal contacts. I am happy and proud to report that agencies within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have a long history of working with the Episcopal Conferences and associations of Episcopal Conferences on the American continent in the pursuit of peace and justice. These are very positive signs in which the Church in my country and the Church in the countries of Africa have engaged each other in the work of evangelization and social outreach and thus have rendered the theme far this Synod In Service to Reconciliation, Justice, and Peace an important reminder of how the Church in the USA and the Church in Africa are conjoined in faith and in charity.
Yet we know that we can merely say in the words of Saint Luke’s Gospel, «we have done only what we ought to have done» [Luke 17:10b] We recognize that the greatest resource that the Church in Africa has are its people. The Church
in the USA continues to benefit from those people from Africa who recently have come as visitors and new residents to our shores. These new arrivals come, not like those of an earlier moment in time, wearing chains and as human chattel, but as skilled workers, professionally trained businessmen, and students eager to make a new life in a land that they view as promising. Many of these new peoples bring with them a profound and dynamic Catholic faith with its rich spiritual heritage. These wonderful people challenge us to rediscover our own spiritual traditions that so often are set aside because of the influence of our secular pursuits.
While my own nation has made outstanding and blessed progress in our own struggle for racial reconciliation and justice, we have not yet achieved that perfection to which the Gospel summons all humanity. We also need to achieve reconciliation, justice, and peace in our own land until as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writing from a jail in Birmingham, Alabama paraphrased the Prophet Amos and we see the ultimate fulfillment of our great potential and [5:24] «Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.»
The great land of Africa has many other resources that the world today lusts for and at times pursues with ravishing greed and frequent violence. Your resources are a blessing for this prosperity to the peoples of Africa but properly viewed bring a sense of the oneness of the earth and the interconnectedness that people everywhere have when we wisely use the natural resources that God has placed in our hands as a common patrimony.
I am deeply grateful to our Holy Father for inviting me to engage my brother bishops from the African continent and to learn from them some of their hopes, struggles, and dreams and to share with them the deep affection and respect of the Church in the United States of America.
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H. Exc. Mons. Orlando B. QUEVEDO, O.M.I., Archbishop of Cotabato, General Secretary of the «Federation of Asian Episcopal Conferences» (F.A.B.C.) (PHILIPPINES)
«In service of reconciliation, justice and peace» – the theme of the Second Special Assembly for Africa resonates deeply with the aspirations of the Church in Asia.
Despite vast differences, the Church in Asia and the Church in Africa bear striking similarities. If Christianity found its way in the apostolic age to Egypt and North Africa by way of the work of St. Mark the Evangelist, so many Christians in India trace their origins to St. Matthew the Apostle. But in the main the Church in Africa is young, like the Church in Asia. In many countries of both continents Christianity was introduced by foreign missionaries during the colonizing period. Further missionary impetus was made in the l9th and 20th centuries.
The richness of cultures, the trove of cherished traditional family values that are truly human, the thousands of languages spoken, the encounter between Christianity, Islam, and indigenous traditional religions – all these are significant realities strikingly similar for Africa and Asia. Both continents are continents of the poor and of the young.
The two post-synodal exhortations of our late beloved Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa (1995) and Ecclesia in Asia (1998) reflect striking resemblances. For example with regard to present day pastoral challenges: the imperatives of inculturation and inter-religious dialogue, the promotion of an emerging globalizing relativistic and materialist culture by the tools of social communication, the negative impact of economic globalization on the poor, the decline of moral values in social, economic, and political life, and the continuing threats on the very nature of marriage and the family, the various faces of injustice and violent conflict that ruin the harmony of African and Asian societies.
The Church in Africa and the Church in Asia are raising similar questions of deep import: What are we as a community of disciples, as Church? How are we to be credible witnesses of the Lord Jesus and His Gospel? How should we respond to the many complex pastoral challenges that confront us in our mission to proclaim Jesus as the Lord and Savior?
As I understand it, the Church in Africa is exploring the theological and pastoral implications of the Church as the Family of God. For us in Asia, guided by Holy Scriptures and the living Magisterium of the Church we have been led by the Holy Spirit, we believe, to explore in the Asian context the theology of Church as Communion and as humble Servant of the Gospel and of Asian peoples. This theological optic has opened up the pastoral option of ongoing radical renewal of the Church in Asia, an option more of being than of doing. For we realize that deeds must come from the heart of a Church that is renewed in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus our Lord.
Hence in its 35 years of fruitful existence the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences has envisioned a renewal for the Church in Asia towards deeper spiritual interiority; towards dialogue with Asian cultures, with the ancient religious and philosophical traditions of Asia, and with Asian peoples especially with the poor; towards authentic discipleship; towards a renewal of the laity for leadership in social transformation; towards a renewed sense of mission ad gentes; towards the renewal of the Asian family as the focal point of evangelization; and towards a credible living of the Eucharist in the life-realities of Asia.
Such renewal is fundamentally a call from our God who is Love (Deus Caritas Est), offering the hope of salvation (Spe Salvi), and impelling us to love in truth (Caritas in Veritate).
To love in truth, the Church in Africa and the Church in Asia bear similar experiences of sorrow and joy. Sorrow — at the many forces of a culture of death, forces that both Ecclesia in Africa and Ecclesia in Asia treat with great concern, such as the increasing poverty and marginalization of our peoples; the continuing attacks on marriage and on the traditional family; the injustices against women and. children; our propensity to favor weapons of destruction over integral development; our inability to compete with the powerful in a global economic order unguided by juridical and moral norms; religious intolerance instead of a dialogue of reason and faith; the rule of greed over the rule of law in public life; division and conflict rather than peace; and the degradation of human and natural ecology. Moreover, the frequency of destructive typhoons, floods, droughts, earthquakes and tsunami in the continent of Asia now requires our pastoral collective concern regarding global warming and climate change.
On the other hand we experience great joy and hope in movements of justice and peace – illustrated in the increasing awareness and participation of young people and women toward empowerment and social transformation, in the movement of many groups of civil society towards integrity in public life and towards the care and integrity of creation, in the solidarity of people of good will from different social classes and religious traditions to work for a more just, more peaceful, more fraternal social order.
The reason for our joy and hope is the fact that we see many positive movements within the Church, in various ecclesial organizations and movements, in small Christian communities, among a great number of men and women in religious life, and among the clergy – all of whom bring the values of the Reign of God into new areopagi of evangelization.
With these sentiments of joy and hope in the Lord I express the solidarity of the members of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences with all the participants of the Second Special Assembly for Africa. We thank you most deeply for welcoming many Asian missionaries as well as migrant workers to your beloved continent.
In view of our recent 9th FABC Plenary Assembly in Manila, allow me to express our gratitude to His Eminence Francis Cardinal Arinze, who was the Special Envoy of the Holy Father, and to His Eminence Ivan Ca
rdinal Dias who sent His Grace Archbishop Robert Sarah as his personal representative.
In á most special way on behalf of the FABC I express our deepest loving fidelity to our beloved Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. May we invite you, beloved Holy Father, to visit our region in the near future. Thank you
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H. Exc. Mons. Peter William INGHAM, Bishop of Wollongong, President of the «Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania» (F.C.B.C.O.) (AUSTRALIA)
Your Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, the Presidents-Delegate, the General Relator, General Secretary, Archbishop Eterovic, my Brothers and Sisters of this Synod,
As the current President of the Federation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania (FCBCO), I bring greetings and good wishes from the local Churches in our 4 Bishops’ Conferences, namely, The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, The New Zealand Catholic Bishops’ Conference, The Bishops’ Conferences of Papua-New Guinea and Solomon Islands and the vast Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Pacific, which extends from Guam, Mariana Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, Cook Islands, right out to Tahiti, plus many more island groups.
I express our communion as a Federation of Bishops’ Conferences with the Bishop of Rome and the Universal Church and our solidarity with the Church in the many nations of Africa.All of our Oceania nations, like so much of Africa, have been colonized, in our case, principally by the British, the French, and the Portuguese.
As in Africa, the Church now exists in Oceania, because of heroic missionaries who came mainly from Ireland, France, Germany and Italy.
The Faith in Oceania also has some wonderful role models in martyrs and saints in addition to those already canonized and beatified, but nowhere near the glorious tradition of Saints and Martyrs that witness to the faith in Africa.
The Millennium Goals for human development are far from being met in our Pacific region called Oceania. Yet, because we, as Church leaders throughout the world, try to be close to our people, we can gain a very practical understanding of the ways poverty can completely dehumanize people, and how violence is so destructive of human life and human dignity. We, as Church leaders, can be so conscious of the injustice that sets the wealthy in a privileged position which discriminates against the underprivileged so vividly portrayed in the Parable of Dives and Lazarus. (Lk 16:19-31)
I realize that these realities are, for the nations of Africa, even more threatening than those faced by the communities of Oceania. I pay tribute to the generosity of Catholics in each of the Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania, who through Caritas Oceania and Caritas in each of our countries support humanitarian peace and development programs through the Church in Africa. Equally the people of Oceania are generous to the Catholic Mission Propaganda Fidei.
Yet, we have so much to admire and learn from you, the Church in Africa, the witness you give in spite of overwhelming difficulties. Your great sense of mission to evangelize your culture means that opposition from government or other faith traditions only intensifies your faith, hope and love.
In Oceania, the terrible scourge of HIV/AIDS (IL 142) (especially in Papua New Guinea), and the exploitation that can arise from mining, highlight the Church’s mission to apply the Gospel of Jesus to reduce the stigma of social disgrace, to replace violence with bridges of reconciliation, justice and peace (IL 90), to hold civil governments to account, to speak up for those persecuted or silenced, and to provide education and health care.
As Leaders in faith and Shepherds of the Christian community, we have from Jesus the Good Shepherd through our long and rich tradition of Catholic faith and culture, a broader view of the human person, because of Jesus and our Church tradition, we have a broader view of justice, of love, of the importance of good relations between individuals, between tribes and between nations; we have a broader view of reconciliation, peace and compassionate care. When there is crisis, injustice and fear, people flock to their churches. This in turn shows the need for us, as Church Leaders, to focus on our Shepherd role and be proactive leaders of hope. As Christians, we deal in hope!
As global temperatures and ocean waters rise, always the poorest and most vulnerable will suffer disproportionately, as they do from drought, flooding and poor harvests, all of which can stir up reasons for conflict and give rise to massive migration by refugees and asylum seekers. In both Oceania and Africa, great work is being done by the Church and its agencies to help people recover their equilibrium in their communities and to manage risks that could arise from natural disasters. We can and must learn from one another. I ask your prayers for Samoa and Tonga in their grief after the recent earthquake and tsunami.
Australia has begun to re-engage with Africa, particularly in the mining industries (IL 51).
As you well know Africa is a continent rich in natural wealth. Yet we would want Australian miners to be responsible to the communities where they will work. Mining must not contribute to instability and conflict – it should be judged as much by its economic dividend as by its peace dividend! A practising Catholic man I know well is a much travelled executive of an Australian mining giant. He assures me that his Company’s intention is ethical sustainability. He says they aim to bring about a win-win situation: tangible benefits to the African Communities where they mine as well as to his Company. Many of you are engaged in this dialogue and we must be at your side.
Political unrest and conflict in the Pacific (e.g., Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea) is nowhere on the scale of African countries, but in discerning the role of the Church as the Body of Christ to build bridges of peace and reconciliation, we can learn from your African Church Leaders. Your accomplishments as the Church in leading peace and reconciliation efforts in Africa are most helpful to the Church elsewhere (IL 108).
We are now welcoming in Australia and New Zealand many Africans who have begun new lives after tribal conflict, violence and oppressive regimes. These refugees come from Sudan, the Horn of Africa and to a lesser extent from the Great Lakes. Other Africans have come to our part of the world to study, and some have come to work as clergy and religious. My Diocese and others are at present discerning to accept candidates for the priesthood from parts of Africa.
We have a very multi-cultural community in Australia, where over 60% of our population are migrants and refugees or their children. This has enriched and changed Australia since World War II. The Pope’s Migrant and Refugee Sunday is celebrated by us at end of August, to highlight the rich cultural diversity migrants and refugees have brought to our land and to help our people to «welcome the stranger» (cf Heb 11:13) so that migrants or refugees from Africa or from anywhere else can be fully integrated into our Australian community.
I welcome our conversations during this Synod and look forward to learning with you and from you.
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H. Em. Card. Péter ERDŐ, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, President of the Council of the European Episcopal Conference (C.E.E.C.) (HUNGARY)
1. “You are salt of the earth…You are the light of the world” (Mt 5: 13-14) – these words of the Lord refer to all Christians, but, in this moment of human history, in a special way to you, dear Brothers and Sisters in Africa. During the preparation of this special assembly, the singular emphasis of this synodal meeting is crystallized: “The Church in Africa at the service of reconciliation, justice, and peace.”
2. I bring to you the most cordial greeting and message of great closeness from the European Bishops, who – represented by the presidents of all the Episcopal Conferences – met together d
uring these days in Paris. We were able to account for a common work by now consolidated with the African Bishops in the framework of common programs of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences, and of SECAM. In various African and European cities, these common works were carried out which treated themes such as migration, slavery, and other human and Christian problems. As you well know, even Europe is a land washed in blood. When, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the inhabitants, especially Catholics in the Western and Eastern part of our continent freely encountered one another, they had to recognize the complexity of their common history. Most of all, the people of Eastern Europe often felt colonized and exploited throughout their history. Even in the first centuries of the modern age, there were entire villages of Christian populations in Southeastern Europe who ended up in the slave trade in the East.
3. Europe’s recent history also left many wounds which are still far from completely healing. If after the Second World War– a war which extinguished the greatest number of human lives in all of humanity – he people of the West, for example the Germans and the French, with substantial aid from great Catholic men such as Schumann, Adenauer and De Gasperi, found not only the way to peaceful coexistence, but also a deeper reconciliation, today it is Central and Eastern Europe’s turn to seek reconciliation of hearts, purification of memory, and constructive brotherhood. In this way, it is very often the Catholic Bishops who are the first to raise the sign of reconciliation, as the German and Polish Bishops first did, a grand act of reconciliation, which at the beginning was not understood by many groups of their society. Several great clerics and theologians of that time, such as, especially, Joseph Ratzinger, found moving words to defend that prophetic act. In recent years there were similar acts of reconciliation and brotherhood between Bishops of Poland and the Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary, and others. Often, mass media does not give much attention to these events. Groups who think they might find their political and economic advantage, soliciting tension and hostility between peoples, ethnic groups and religions are not lacking. “Light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it”, wrote Saint John (1:5). Christ is the light of the world. He illumines even the darkness of human history, and no obscurity, no hate, no evil can overcome him. Our hope is in Him.
Even if the Church’s voice and the witness of each Christian seems weak, even if they often do not appear on the front page of the greatest means of communication, this subtle voice is stronger than any noise, lie, propaganda, or manipulation. We are witnesses of the strength of the martyrs. Now the witnesses of the Lamb, killed in the 20th century for their faith, are beginning to be beatified and canonized. They are the ones who “have been through the great trial; they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev 7:14). During long persecutions, their memory was covered in silence. And yet, this memory remained alive in the heart of the community of believers.
And now we open the graves. On one hand, it is moving to see what remains of the bodies of the martyrs. Every movement of one of their mortal remains stirs the souls of all who participate in these ceremonies. The great tension between extreme weakness of a human being who was killed and the sublime strength of the same person illuminated by the glory of the martyrs, gives a powerful spiritual impulse to our communities.
Dear Brethren! We, others, European Catholics, have learned from our history to follow closely the fate of African Christians as well, and we have also learned to esteem your fidelity, your witness, and the African martyrs who give their lives – year by year in worrying numbers for Christ and for his Church, and in the same way also for us. The Church in Africa has earned our gratitude and our profound respect.
4. The Servant of God John Paul II taught us with strength and clarity of his divine mercy. Circles of evil which seem at times even diabolical, and which can sadden and push entire human societies towards desperation, building structures of hate, violence, revenge and injustice between ethnic groups, peoples or social classes, would not be able to be overcome simply with human strength, if there were not the divine mercy which renders us capable of following Christ’s commandment: “Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate” (Lk 6:36). If our Lord has commanded us this, such a command is also a guarantee of the possibility to accomplish it. It is He who will give us the strength to be merciful, and to shatter every form of evil.
5. We are convinced that the exchange of gifts is not a program which is valid only between the western and eastern parts of Europe. It is incumbent also upon the faithful, between particular churches even on a continental and universal level. The opportunities for solidarity and the determination not to forget our needy brothers even in a time of crisis is fixed between Catholics in Europe. At the same time, we wish to better study your liturgical and catechetical experiences, the dynamic of your priestly vocations, the opportunities to build together the Church of Christ in Europe, in Africa, and everywhere throughout the world.
6. Certainly, we do not delude ourselves: the great economic and political powers of the world very often do not act according to the logic of charity and justice, and at times they seem to forget true reality, the nature of things and of the human being. Moreover, human dignity does not depend upon our efficiency, nor is it proportional to the success of this world. Every human being, such as this, has the same inalienable dignity. Because he is created in the image and likeness of God. Human dignity is not incompatible with suffering. An ideology which said that to save our dignity, it would be better to die than to suffer, would be false. This was the attitude of the ancient Greco-Romans, those not yet illuminated by the light of the Gospel. Christ’s example teaches us that the greatest suffering may be the moment of the greatest dignity and glory. After the traitor left the Last Supper, Jesus said: “Now has the Son of man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified. If God has been glorified in him, God will in turn glorify him in himself, and will glorify him very soon.” (Jn 13: 31-32).
If in the present moment many in our world do not listen to the voice of the Creator, and are not open to accepting truth and practicing charity, the nature of created reality remains what it is. In any case, justice and divine mercy still hold their own in the functioning of the world and in the progress of history. Thus, dear Brethren, we assure you of our prayers and our solidarity so that you might find the path to promote reconciliation, justice and peace, and you may be a comfort as well for us with your experiences, your faith, and your witness.
