Africa Hope of the Church Despite Multiple “distractions”: Signis Africa President on 2025 Jubilee Year Opportunity

Prof. Okpara, the Nigerian-born Catholic Priest recalled, “said that attention is a very scarce commodity in the current digital age we live in; and in order to counteract the distractions that surround us, we need to build on attention. And that attention can be grasped, when we look at each other, celebrate each other.”

“She really based her paper on the principle of communalism, which is a practical African philosophy, and the principle of Ubuntu … When we celebrate together, when we share together, we pay attention to each other,” Fr. Walter said about his compatriot, who teaches professional ethics in media and communication, media, the human person and society, and human communication theory and practice at the Pan-Atlantic University’s School of Media and Communication in Nigeria.

Fr. Walter Chikwendu Ihejirika. Credit: ACI Africa

Prof. Okpara’s presentation “makes us to reflect further on the message of the Pope about listening with the ear of the heart,” the President of Signis Africa went on to say, referring to Pope Francis’ 24 January 2022 Message for the 56th World Day of Social Communications.

In his Message, the Holy Father expressed concern that people were “losing the ability to listen,” both in the Church and wider public life.

He said that the two-year global consultation process leading to the Synod on Synodality was to be “a great opportunity” for Catholics to listen to one another. “A synodal process has just been launched,” Pope Francis said, and appealed, “Let us pray that it will be a great opportunity to listen to one another.”

“Communion, in fact, is not the result of strategies and programs, but is built in mutual listening between brothers and sisters,” Pope Francis stated. 

Fr. Walter Chikwendu Ihejirika. Credit: ACI Africa

Recalling the Holy Father’s appeal to foster listening during the multi-year Synod on Synodality that was realized under the theme, “For a synodal Church: Communion, participation and mission”, and extended to 2024, Fr. Walter said, “When we listen with the ear of the heart, we share with each other; we appreciate each other, we empathize, we have sympathy. That's what communalism is all about.”

“That's the principle of Ubuntu, and that's what Africa has to offer,” he told ACI Africa, and emphasized, “Africa has a very great asset, a resource, that it can offer to the Universal Church as we celebrate this Jubilee Year.”

“We are saying also that listening is not just the mere act of listening; it’s more than that. In line with what Pope Francis said, listening is listening with the ears of the heart, empathy. So, the call is for more empathy, more socialization, more sense of brotherliness, and more sense of community,” Fr. Walter said, emphasizing the nexus between the 2025 Jubilee and Synodality. 

When listening and communal life are fostered, he went on to say, “we are living out already what is coming up in the future … So, everything is tied together; synodality, listening, and the future. And Africa has a lot to offer in this way.”

Fr. Walter Chikwendu Ihejirika. Credit: ACI Africa

The 2025 Jubilee Year, he said, “calls us not to relent, because hope, as the Italians say, la speranza è l'ultima da morire, which means hope is the last to die.”

“As communicators, we need to go beyond that bleak future to point to a brighter future. We need to infuse people with a sense of hope. We need to help people not to be weathered by the drudgery around us, but to give them an opening that life is still worth living, and that if we don't give up, we'll be able to achieve our hope,” Fr. Walter said.

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Catholic communicators, he emphasized, “need to focus on giving people hope, not only focusing on the negative, but helping them to see the bright side of life.”

Credit: ACI Africa

“That means we never give up. So, I would say, despite the distractions we are facing in Africa, we are pushing on,” the member of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Ahiara told ACI Africa during the January 23 interview on the sidelines of the January 22-24 biennial professional seminar for Church communication offices at the University of Holy Cross in Rome. 

A representative cross section of Catholic communicators, journalists and media professionals is gathering in Vatican City for multiple conferences organized in the context of the 2025 Jubilee Year.

Other conferences that Vatican City is hosting during the January 22-26 period include the Global jubilee conference with Religious Sisters and the jubilee of the world of communications.

Credit: ACI Africa

Participants in the international Conference for Catholic Institutional Communicators, who include Presidents of Episcopal Communication Commissions and Directors of National Communication Offices in Catholic Bishops’ Conferences are scheduled to meet from January 27-29 in closed-door sessions.

In the January 23 interview, the President of Signis Africa acknowledged with appreciation the participation of Africans in the Jubilee of the World of Communications. He said, “The presence of many African communicators in this Jubilee Year is very encouraging; and I'm very, very encouraged … It's a very encouraging thing. That means there is hope, and Africa is the hope of the Church.”

The Nigerian Professor of Development Communication and Media Studies also lauded the initiative of starting off the 2025 Jubilee Year with the gathering of Catholic communicators as “Pilgrims of Hope”. 

“It's quite remarkable that the very first official activity of the Jubilee of Hope is the Jubilee for communicators,” he said, and added, “It's also very symbolic because it tries to show the significance of communication in the life and mission of the Church. Communication is like the hub. Whatever we do in the Church, if we cannot communicate properly, it will not have any influence; it will not be effective.

Credit: ACI Africa

In a separate interview with ACI Africa, Fr. Paul Charidza Mutsengi of the Order of Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (OCarm) emphasized the need to go beyond traditional means of communication and evangelization, taking deliberate initiatives to reach out to the people of God rather than waiting for them to turn up in church premises.

“We have to go out to the people and bring the gospel to them because the generation that we are working with is the generation that searches online. If we rely mainly on traditional media, we will not reach out to the intended audience,” Fr. Paul said.

He emphasized, “We have to prepared and we have to take the Word of God to the people ... Whatever is affecting the West or the East is also affecting Africa. The digital platform, the mass communication is affecting everyone. I think we have to migrate a bit from traditional ways of evangelizing and switching into the modern way.”

Fr. Paul Charidza Mutsengi. Credit: ACI Africa

The native of Zimbabwe confirmed the challenge of reading apathy in Africa, saying, “People are tired of reading. Audio content is something they can easily listen to. For WhatsApp, it doesn't matter if you are targeting the young, the middle-aged, or the old, because most of them, do have WhatsApp.”

“We have a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, TikTok, and X, where we present different topics and give it out to the people. So we do work on that and we are still working on it,” the Zimbabwean Parish Priest told ACI Africa during the Wednesday, January 22 interview in Rome.

Fr. Paul Charidza Mutsengi. Credit: ACI Africa

Embracing digital evangelization, Fr. Paul appealed, “let's continue to work for the salvation of souls as ministers of the word.”