Africa: SECAM assembly, message of bishops on the family. “More pastoral attention”

“Insecurity and poverty, social exclusion, impact of new technologies and mass media on family life, gender ideology, one-parent families, couples of divorced-remarried, contraception, sterilisation, abortion, polygamy, dowry, widowhood rites, consequences of migrations due to war and conflict situations, internal family crises, believing in witchcraft, and absence of one of the two spouses owing to study or work”: those are the difficulties that African families have to face, which are listed in the Message concluding the 17th assembly of bishops of the Symposium of Bishops’ Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), taking place from 19 to 25 July in Luanda, Angola, on the theme: “Family in Africa, yesterday and tomorrow: in the light of the Gospel”. In the text, bishops confirm the basic elements of Catholic teachings, and commit themselves “to renewal and strengthening of our pastoral attention to families”. African families are asked to be “a place of remarkable human and spiritual development, to become communities for life, prayer and love, capable of changing our societies”. The Message also includes a long list of “peoples of Africa, who are facing difficult times”, and for whom bishops pray: “Sudan, Somalia, Lesotho, Burundi, Nigeria, Mali, Cameroon, Central Africa, Chad, Egypt, and Libya”. President of SECAM is Msgr. Gabriel Mbilingi, archbishop of Lubango.