St. Pope John Paul II’s ‘Ecclesia in Africa’ Lauded as “a living reality” in the African Church

Ecclesia in Africa is the Pope’s post-synodal exhortation to the 1994 Special Assembly for Africa.

The exhortation helped shape Catholic pastoral priorities across Africa in the late 1990s and 2000s, especially on inculturation, social justice, and local leadership formation.

The September 13 event also marked the 40th Anniversary of St. Pope John Paul II’s first visit to Cameroon which took place from 11-14 August 1985.

In his keynote address, Fr. Suh Niba also recounted his personal experience with the Catholic Church’s 265 Pope, saying, “I knew about Pope John Paul II, who was Karol Wojtyla, before I came to Rome. I met the human being who became and was Pope John II in Rome.”

“When you truly encounter a person, you also want to know what the person thinks. I studied and have studied John Paul II, the philosopher and theological anthropologist, the fearless theorizer and defender of who the human being is, since then,” he said.

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He remembered the Pope who died during the first vespers of Divine Mercy Sunday, 2 April 2005, as a Catholic Pontiff who salvaged the concept and reality of the human person.

Fr. Suh Niba said that the Pope theorized and taught the reality of the human person with a conviction that was corroborated in and through the witness and testimony of his life “all the way to the very end.”

“We are irrevocably, indisputably condemned to be human from the first moment of conception to our last breath in natural death,” he said, and added, “I know that John Paul II believed that holiness is not the privilege of a few. He recognized and promoted holiness wherever he saw it.”

He also lauded St. Pope John Paul II for beatifying and canonizing more African saints, including Isidore Bakanja of the Congo, Cyprain Tansi of Nigeria, and Josephine Bakhita of Sudan.

Through the beatification, the Cameroonian Priest said, the Pope “invited us to realize that holiness is always in season, that God has no favorites, but that anyone of any nationality, race who believes in him, is material for sanctity.”

“I know too, thanks to him, that Jesus is not some exotic abstract idea, some moral ideal beyond our reach, or some social construct. Jesus, God, is real. They are for real. God is a Person. The path to godliness and holiness is essentially human,” he said in his keynote address.

In reference to St. Pope John Paul II, Fr. Suh Niba said that “to be holy is to be authentically human; simply human; sacrificially human through humble love and service of one another.”

“As Jesus taught us, as Pope John II learnt it and preached it; as both Jesus and St John Paul lived it and would want you and me to live it,” he said.

During Pope John Paul II’s funeral, more than three million pilgrims reportedly traveled to Rome to pay homage to the pope, some standing in line for over 24 hours to pray in thanksgiving for their beloved Holy Father.

On 28 April 2005, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the normal five-year waiting period before beginning the cause of beatification and canonization would be waived for Pope John Paul II.

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On 1 May 2011, Pope Benedict XVI beatified Pope John Paul II, and Pope Francis canonized Saint John Paul II alongside Saint John XXIII on 27 April 2014.

Silas Mwale Isenjia is a Kenyan journalist with a great zeal and interest for Catholic Church related communication. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communication from Moi University in Kenya. Silas has vast experience in the Media production industry. He currently works as a Journalist for ACI Africa.