IMBISA

INTER-REGIONAL MEETING OF THE BISHOPS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA ASSOCIAO INTER-REGIONAL DOS BISHOPS DA AFRICA AUSTRAL

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

2nd November 2012 Ref: 004/2012

XIII ORDINARY GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS 7-28 OCTOBER 2012
The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith We present the interventions firstly of Cardinal Pengo on behalf of the church in Africa and the interventions of the Bishops of the IMBISA region. - For Africa: H. Em. Rev. Card. Polycarp PENGO, Archbishop of Dar-es-Salaam, President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM - SECAM) (TANZANIA) I am speaking in the name of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM). Evangelization has taken place in the African Continent from the very beginning of the Church. The encounter between the Ethiopian Eunuch and the Deacon Philip (cf. Acts 8: 26-39) is a case in point. However, for most sub-Saharan Africa the task of Evangelization is of more recent occurrence so that to distinguish between Old and New Evangelization is very difficult. Yet it would seem very appropriate to speak of New Evangelization for Africa starting with the challenge posed by Pope Paul VI in 1969: "Africans, be Missionaries to yourselves." This challenge entails for us to be truly Africans and truly Catholics. That calls for a mature Church on the Continent. To respond to the challenge, necessary Pastoral structures at national and regional levels were established or re-invigorated. In that line SECAM was established in 1969 intended to "preserve and foster communion, collaboration and joint action among all the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and the adjacent Islands". The establishment or re-invigoration of pastoral structures accounts for today's spectacular numbers of African bishops, priests, women and men religious and catechists. A very fundamental establishment for New Evangelization in Africa is that of small Christian Communities, These have become Iiving centres of Evangelization of the present day Continent.
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On the negative side, there are several factors which impede the required deepening of the faith in Africa. For example, globalization introduces rapidly undigested foreign values making it hard for the Christians on the continent to be truly Africans. Their Christian faith is thus rendered also very much alien. Traditional values such as respect for life and close family social relations become very difficult to realize. On the other hand, there are cultural elements in Africa which prevent proper evangelization. Among these elements one may point out perennial conflicts on tribal basis, diseases, corruption, human trafficking, the atrocity of child abuse and violence against minors and women. Another challenging factor which New Evangelization in Africa must not overlook is the actuality of Islamic Fundamentalism on the Continent. In regard to this, the evangelizers must face the difficulty of dialoguing with the vast majority of good Muslims who however, are mute and the small groups of fundamentalists who are not prepared to accept even objective truth which is opposed to their preconceived position. New Evangelization in Africa also demands the African evangelizers to go beyond the demand of Pope Paul VI: "Africans, be missionaries to yourselves". African Evangelization is already now missionaries in Western Churches such as the United States of America and Europe. While this is a very plausible move, one must mention the possible negative element of the evangelizers seeking in the first place material gain before genuine evangelization to the detriment of the church on either side. The church in Africa is deprived of best qualified evangelizers while the materially rich Western Church receives evangelizers whose primary aim is material gain. With all this in mind, one can see that the Synod on New Evangelization is a most welcome event. It is as His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI put it, a call for Africa to "Stand up, take your mat and walk" (See Africae Munus, No.148). With renewed faith through this Synod, I believe, Africa can overcome the deep-seated problems facing her today. In the light shed by the two Post Synodal Apostolic exhortations: Ecclesia in Africa of 1995 and Africae Munus of 2011 as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, the Church in Africa rightly expects a rich harvest from the present Synod.

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- H. Em. Rev. Card. Wilfrid Matthew NAPIER, O.F.M., Archbishop of Durban (SOUTH AFRICA) I would like to share what the Church of the IMBISA Region in Southern Africa, which comprises Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, has done in order to meet the changes that have occurred in regard to the supply of personnel, the development of infrastructure and access to funding. Formed in the 1970s, IMBISA (the Interregional Meeting of Bishops in Southern Africa) was from the start committed to meeting the needs and concerns of the entire Region as effectively as possible. Consequently, after dealing with constitutional and organisational matters, IMBISA engaged in systematic analysis, theological reflection and practical planning on how to deal with, among other things, the Alleviation of Poverty among its people, using its own resources. The first step taken in 2001 examined where we stood in regard to resources. We did this using the Pastoral Cycle, with its four practical steps of: a) Exposure/Immersion; b) Social Analysis; c) Theological Reflection and d) Pastoral Planning. At the next Plenary Assembly in 2004 we learned to apply a simple method of Strategic Pastoral Planning, and immediately applied it to our goal of becoming more Self-Reliant in the key areas of a) personnel, b) infrastructure and c) finances. The Bishops set a practical target for each local Church to become 15% more self-reliant by 2007. By 2007 most local Churches reported positive progress, so IMBISA's set about consolidating the level of Self-reliance already achieved by going through a workshop on Good Governance. We saw this as the way to ensure that our Selfreliance would be sustainable even without substantial outside help. This was followed by a workshop on Good Work Ethics. It is our hope therefore that the Church in Southern Africa, equipped with these resources, will be able to complete the projects inspired by a) the Special Assemblies of the Synod of Bishops for Africa in 1994 & 2009, b) the Year of Faith and c) the New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith. That hope is based on the experience of several dioceses, including the Archdiocese
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of Durban, which have engaged actively in New Evangelisation, using processes similar to RENEW, with its methodology of several years of reflection "seasons" of 6 to 8 weeks on themes such as "Friendship with Jesus", "Friends forever", "Gifts of the Holy Spirit', "Fruits of the Holy Spirit". In a recent survey many lay people testified to experiences of personal and prayerful encounters with Jesus as they read, shared and prayed the Scriptures together. Further they considered that their parishes were on the way towards becoming "evangelized", through their commitment to: a) continuing formation of Adults in their faith; b) systematic preparation for marriage, as well as the mentoring of newly married couples; c) relevant post-First Holy Communion, post-Confirmation and post-Matrimony catechesis, and d) Christian living based on the Gospel values needed for the Church to become truly the Family of God.

- H. Exc. Rev. Mons. Alexander Thomas KALIYANIL, S.V.D., Archbishop of Bulawayo (ZIMBABWE) Traditionally Zimbabwe is a Godfearing and a very religious-minded nation. All the various tribes here have deep belief in an almighty God. The nation highly values Christian principles in all its policies and programmes. However modern trends of local politics, secularism and freedom of individuals have diminished these sacred Christian principles. In the last 50 years or so many indigenous Christian churches have emerged which integrate Christian principles and traditional practices. These seem to attract more people than the traditional mainline churches especially due their approach to sickness, suffering and evil. From 1980s the idea of church as a family has been greatly accepted with the introduction of Small Ecclesial Communities. There are also various associations for laity starting with the children to the elders which are very popular. People always have a sense of belonging to each other. Therefore these two approaches seem to be very effective in evangelizing. There are many new areas which still need primary evangelization. Catechists play a very vital role in this evangelisation process. Challenges faced by the Church: conflict between cultural practices and faith; rise of indigenous churches; mushrooming of Pentecostal churches; politicisation of churches by the government; materialism and secularism; lack of initiative by priests and religious; economic meltdown and migration; HIV and AIDS and sicknesses; tribal and ethnic divisions; lack of media freedom; incomplete families; Catholic institutions like schools and hospitals have lost their hold on faith. The above mentioned challenges are an opportunity for us to rethink on our evangelising methods in Zimbabwe. The year of faith we are in is the right time to put in place measures to manage most of the abovementioned challenges. We are very confident that this year is going to be a start afresh to our pastoral approaches.

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- H. Exc. Rev. Mons. William SLATTERY, O.F.M., Archbishop of Pretoria, Military Ordinary for South Africa (SOUTH AFRICA) Given the present structures of the church and the importance of liturgy and the parish community much depends on priests (81-89 in the Instrumentum Laboris). With few trained formators in many seminaries do seminarians personally encounter the Lord? Who discerns? If young priests come out with poor human formation they will be unsympathetic and unable to make people belong. Belonging is as the heart of community, belonging is an image of the Holy Spirit. The real signs meaningful to young people in this subjective age are recognized by them in the area of belonging and interpersonal relationships. If the young priest has poor spiritual formation, if he has not contemplated the absolute beauty of God personally he will lack in zeal for prayer and be blind to discernment. He will be unable to train others in holiness. With unsupervised pastoral formation the priest will be unlikely to experience the gifts of the laity and so dominate rather than collaborate as desired in No 106 of the Instrumentum Laboris. If the priest has poor theology it will be the blind leading the visibly impaired. To deal with the modern media (131 I.L) I like the policy of the English Church prior to the papal visit when they carefully selected and trained bright young people to defend and explain their faith. An attractive young lady doctor is much more effective in media propounding on medical issues than an elderly unmarried bishop. The evangelizing of youth must involve a) exposure to the world of the poor and b) involve doing something for Christ-even as simple as pilgrimage and c) reflection together on such experiences. I would like some formal recognition of the pastoral services such as Catechists, Chaplains and Spiritual Directors both men and women in the life of the Church. For bishops ourselves Bishops' Conferences must create space for us to discern evangelization in our spiritual and pastoral lives. As father and brother we bishops must travel closely with our priests evaluating their parish apostolates and keeping before them the light of Evangelization. We must welcome the new movement but continue with them to keep the vision of the diocese within the contours of their charisms. - H. Exc. Rev. Mons. Jos NAMBI, Bishop of Kwito-Bi (ANGOLA) In its 500 years of experience in evangelization, with its light and its darkness, Angola now lives in circumstances of peace, and of profound social transformations aimed toward an economic growth which is attracting many foreign countries and seeing the proliferation of sects. Thanks be to God, less pleasant memories of the past have been overcome. And currently, economic and social growth can be observed which, though oriented toward development, is far from responding to authentic and huge challenges.
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Internally, a similar situation constitutes a pretext for drawing profit, allowing easy enrichment often at any cost (increasing the gap between rich and poor) and creating a dichotomy between faith and life. Externally, this gives rise to growing emigration, often dishonest and opportunistic. The Church in Angola is attentive to this situation and, reading the signs of the times in the light of the Ecclesiastic Magisterium, in particular of the contributions of the last two Special Assemblies for Africa, has attempted to answer this challenge by putting into practice a family Pastoral, with a triennial pairing of themes: Family and Marriage; Family and Reconciliation; Family and Culture. This has all been in order to relaunch a process which will bring us to take up again the itinerary of Christian initiation in families, in their condition of having a privileged space for evangelization. On the other hand, these and other situations cannot but call for a profound and permanent catechesis which involves the faithful Christian with regard to God, the Church and society. - H. Exc. Rev. Mons. Adriano LANGA, O.F.M., Bishop of Inhambane (MOZAMBIQUE) I would like to say that Evangelization in Africa has achieved and is achieving a great work which, justifiably, is worthy of praise. But in this Church there is no lack of all sorts of problems, which hinder the progress of the proclamation of the Gospel. In the countries of ancient Christian tradition they speak of the need for new methods and new expressions to proclaim the Gospel, since the old ones no longer have any meaning for todays man. In Africa, the central problem is that of dialogue with the local cultures. At this time when speaking about the New Evangelization, the Church must ask herself what is the problem for the evangelization of Africa, for African man. The Church must ask herself what is this Africa and who is this African. In truth, it could be stated that, in Africa, an unknown person proclaimed the Gospel to another unknown person. The anthropologicalcultural question is crucial and has been the decisive aspect in evangelization in Africa. Over the centuries, the Magisterium was called on to intervene, in different ways, to regain the attention of the evangelizers. Even today, there is a need to insist, since, for many missionaries, the orientations of the Magisterium and the voice of the human and social sciences are still unanswered letters. Among the various consequences is that the evangelization of the unknown person by the unknown person has created a divided Christian, tortured within himself and vulnerable to sects, because of the duplicity to which he is subject in practical life, because he is obliged to abandon ancestral convictions, creeds and practices without proper catechesis. It is necessary that the Gospel, in the person of the evangelizer, knows who the African is; it is necessary for him to know what makes this man happy or sad, culturally, socially and politically. It is necessary for the evangelizer to speak to the African in such a way that, like the Samaritan woman, he might say: He told me everything I have done (Jn 4:39); it is necessary that Africans say to the
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evangelizers just as the Samaritans said to the same Samaritan woman: Now we believe no longer because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he is indeed the Saviour of the world (Jn 4:42). This meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman undoubtedly occurred because Jesus had penetrated deeply into her life; to do this, Jesus spoke her language and used her way of speaking. He did not speak as he spoke to the Jews, to the scribes and to the Pharisees. Therefore, it is indispensable and urgent for inculturation to no longer be an unanswered letter. A missionary, or any other evangelizer, with all his goodwill, does not invent new methods orlanguages or new expressions in Africa nor for the Africans without immersing himself in this culture. If New Evangelization is a question of methods and of expressions, it will not become new if it doesnt go through Inculturation. - H. Em. Rev. Card. Laurent MONSENGWO PASINYA, Archbishop of Kinshasa (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO) In the experience of the young African Churches, the encounter with missionaries very quickly put us in a situation of interculturality, as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us during his visit to Benin in November 2011. The first bearers of the Gospel in fact came from other places, with their culture, a culture different to ours. Hence the reason for the miracle of the polysemy of missionary speech, the work of the Holy Spirit. Long theological debates allowed for the clarification of the notion of inculturation. However, if the term is recent, the reality of it remains as old as the experience of Israel. This people who were beneficiaries of the experience of revelation were notably confronted with Hellenistic culture. They had to invent a way of giving reason to the hope they carried. It was the same for the Apostles of Christ and following of the Apostle Paul who, to communicate his experience of the Mystery of Christ, used Greek culture. Vatican Council II confirmed this dynamic by asking that in each major socio-cultural area, such theological speculation should be encouraged, in the light of the universal Church's tradition, as may submit to a new scrutiny the words and deeds which God has revealed, and which have been set down in Sacred Scripture and explained by the Fathers and by the Magisterium (Ad Gentes, no. 22; cf. Lumen Gentium, no. 23). Inculturation is that never fully achieved process of incarnation of the Christian life and the Christian message in the cultures. In this way, the experience of the Mystery of Christ finds, on the one hand, its expression in us, and becomes, on the other hand, the principle, the criteria and the power of recreation and unification of personal and community life (cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi, no. 19). Evangelization is not an act accomplished once time and for all, because it is a permanent dialogue between the evangelical message and culture, which by its nature is dynamic and mobile. This continuous metamorphosis, sign of life, is also verified in our human communities where the generations follow each other. The
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experience of Jesus Christ can only be transmitted from one generation to the other in its form and content. But as the Scriptures taught us, we must transmit the story, the story of the joyful encounter with Jesus Christ, so that especially our contemporaries and young persons (cf. Ex, 13; Jo, 14), may open their hearts to Him (cf. Acts 3:20; Jn 4). This probably is the deep meaning of the Christian identity crisis which confuses us today. What language should be used to tell of the God of Jesus Christ to todays man who has stopped asking questions about God or asks them badly? The image of the courtyard launched by Benedict XVI opens up interesting horizons. New evangelization, in consequence, becomes a call to look into our culture of today for the most appropriate language to make this story an experience, to translate it into concrete and eloquent acts for all the spheres of human life. - H. Exc. Rev. Mons. Gerard Tlali LEROTHOLI, O.M.I., Archbishop of Maseru, President of the Episcopal Conference (LESOTHO) The mission of the Church is the mission of God and the Holy Spirit is the first agent of evangelization. He precedes any human initiative. He is a dynamic and irresistible force within and outside the Church. He moves wherever He wills and ours is to pay attention to his movements. There is no time when He is never with the Church. As He was with the Church at first Pentecost, He is still there today. Fifty years ago, it is the same Spirit that moved Blessed John XXIII to convene the Second Vatican Council. I believe it is the same Spirit that moved Pope Benedict XVI to call for this synod on New Evangelization. This is the same Spirit that animates the Catholic Church in Lesotho as it celebrates 150 years of her evangelization this year 2012. The focus of this synod is the transmission of the Christian Faith. I wish to highlight the following stages necessary for the transmission of the faith. There are five distinct but inseparable stages. 1) Belief in Christ: The Christian faith means far more that being baptized or going to Church. It is more than adhering to a code of conduct. It is a personal, not private, relationship with the person of Christ which results in the conversion of heart and mind of mind and heart. As relationship it need to be nourished and sustained. This is where the challenge is with most of our people. 2) Belonging to His Church: Christians are not only called to believe but also to belong fully to the Church the body of Christ. This is about the whole question of membership of the Church. The Church is the family of God where each member as a specific role to play and a particular mission to accomplish. 3) Becoming His disciple and witness: As members of Christs body, we are therefore His hands, feet, eyes and heart. We need to represent him well by imitating his way of living. He associated with people from all walks of life without any discrimination. He broke down cultural, racial, economic and social walls that the world upholds. His approach to life was unique and counter-cultural. He was often accused of eating with sinners and tax-collectors. 4) Behaving accordingly: Christian faith is no free for all kind of life. It includes both conduct and character. This is most controversial part of being Christian. There are clearly Christian ethical and moral standards that a Christian
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must live by. As there are unacceptable ways of behaving. The acid test of our credibility lies here. Do we match our actions with our words, our creed with our deeds? Finally we can only tell other about our faith if we are fully convinced ourselves. This is clearly the realm of evangelization. It is no option for Christians. It is an imperative of Christian calling. We are called to be sent. I wish this Synod would pay more attention to these stages as reflect on New Evangelization.

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Communications Department: communications@imbisa.com Also find IMBISA on Facebook and Twitter

Website: www.imbisa.org