Together against ” “the new forms of slavery” “

The fight against AIDS was one the main themes at the 13th Plenary Assembly of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), which has just ended in Dakar, Senegal (30 September – 13 October 2003). The some 120 participants – presidents and delegates of the national and regional Episcopal Conferences (including representatives of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe and America), delegates of aid organizations, experts – dedicated two days of reflection and debate to the scourge of AIDS that is afflicting the continent. The assembly will soon publish a document with an action plan and pastoral guidelines. Against “the Africa of the warlords”. In the triennial report on the organization’s activities given by the outgoing president of SECAM, Msgr. Mosengwo Pasinya also drew attention to the socio-political situation of Africa. He denounced a serious geopolitical development that is being ignored by world public opinion: namely, “the replacement of ‘the Africa of the colonels’ by ‘the Africa of the warlords’: bit by bit the countries of Africa are being placed in the hands of persons who have committed crimes in the past. Has Africa nothing better to offer to the world?” And he concludes: “This situation poses ethical and moral problems that appear not to worry the politicians. But they must disturb all Christian consciences and those of the bishops in particular”. From slavery to the conquest of a “new humanity”. To demonstrate the will for the renewal of Christian consciences, the bishops made an historic gesture, going on pilgrimage to the island of Gorée, which is symbolically the place from whence the slave vessels departed. On the occasion of his visit in 1982, John Paul II called it the “African sanctuary of black suffering”. In their Gorée message, Purification of memory. For a new humanity, the African bishops declare: “Gorée was the gateway of a journey without return for countless sons and daughters of the continent, deported as slaves to the Americas and to Europe in a holocaust that still remains unrecognized”. Today, however, the consciousness of new forms of slavery, new forms of colonialism (economic potentates, the traffic in women and children…), is growing in Africa. New developments in SECAM. Another issue focused on by the African bishops is that of more effectively promoting the mission of the Church in Africa. What’s needed to this end is a better coordination and simplification of the work and relations between Episcopal Conferences, regional Associations of Episcopal Conferences and SECAM. And behind this need two urgent questions for the Church in Africa are hidden. The first is that of evangelization and the inculturation of Christianity; the second is that of promoting in Africa the dimension of community in the Church: between bishops, with priests, with Rome, with the Churches of the other continents. The plenary assembly elected a new executive, composed of Msgr. John Onaiyekan, archbishop of Abuja (Nigeria), in the role of president. The first vice-president is Msgr. Francisco Silota, bishop of Chimoio (Mozambique), the second, Msgr. Theodor Adrien Sarr, archbishop of Dakar (Senegal). A meeting between African and European Churches. The African bishops accepted the proposal of Msgr. Pasinya to organize together with the CCEE (Council of the European Episcopal Conferences) a meeting between African and European bishops, to be held in November 2004. Msgr. Aldo Giordano, CCEE general secretary, who was also present at the Dakar meeting, confirmed his Council’s willingness to cooperate in such a meeting, which would be a way of fostering episcopal communion; the occasion will be the 10th anniversary of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Ecclesia in Africa”. The debates will focus on pastoral issues of common interest to European and African bishops (relations with Islam, formation and exchange of priests, solidarity…).