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Small Christian Communities (SCCs), the new way of being Church in Africa, are leading the way in uniting different Christian denominations, a non-Catholic Ecumenist has said.
The Church in Africa is burdened by tribalism, among other challenges that are hindering co-responsibility in ministry, which the multi-year Synod on Synodality proposes, Catholic Theologians who are behind the ongoing weekly synodal conversations have said.
Africa’s experience of “Church as a family of God” makes Synodality, which invites the people of God to journey together in communion, participation and mission, “a new word for an old idea”, John Cardinal Onaiyekan of Nigeria has said.
The prelate told La Croix that the Church in Africa is one that is “alive and full of faith” and that he came to Benin to “learn.”
To foster the good relations between Apostolic Nunciatures and the Church in Africa, representatives of the Holy Father on the continent must strive to acknowledge the diversity of the Church in Africa “as a gift” to the global Catholicism, an official at the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN) has said.
The Holy See is increasingly diversifying the membership of its diplomatic service, a Vatican-based Nigerian Catholic Archbishop, who previously served as an Apostolic Nuncio has said.
Being a Catholic Bishop in Africa involves a lot of work that sometimes leaves Bishops exhausted, participants at a the10th session of the ongoing synodal palavers have been told, and urged to be more patient with their shepherds who sometimes appear not to be available for everyone.
Wilfrid Fox Cardinal Napier of South Africa is calling on his colleagues in the Episcopacy, members of the Clergy, and women and men Religious to put in place strategies that will make them “effective agents of evangelization”.
Patriarchal structures that characterized the traditional African setting were introduced in the Church and have continued to affect the relationship between Local Ordinaries and those in Religious Life, a Kenyan theologian has said.
Religious leaders in Africa are appealing for the continent’s debt cancellation ahead of the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year to reduce the financial burdens that various African countries are grappling with.
As the Church in Africa continues to supply missionaries to other places in the world experiencing a decrease in personnel, attention must also be given to places in Africa that equally have a shortage, the leadership of Symposium of Catholic Bishops in Africa has appealed.
A group of 30 U.S.-based members of the Catholic Women Association (CWA) hailing from the Central African nation of Cameroon have lauded the 10th National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis as a memorable event that gives them hope to even future participation.
Following decades of evangelization, the Catholic Church in Africa “has taken root and is now an adult”, the leadership of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) has said.
Many African marriages are breaking because women are no longer comfortable with their roles in the family, a Nigerian Catholic expert on marriage and family has said.
The Church in Africa can tap from the experience of Eastern Churches on the continent on living the Synod on Synodlity, participants at a virtual conversation have said.
The spirit of the Synod on Synodality has been introduced in Africa and is spreading across the world’s second-largest and second-most populous continent, an African member of the Vatican Theological Commission of the Synod has said.
Archbishop Ignace Bessi Dogbo, the recently appointed Local Ordinary of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abidjan in Ivory Coast is proposing three approaches that he says are “effective” in facilitating a participative Synodal process in Africa.
In the year 2023, Africa received the biggest chunk of support from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International, a Catholic charity foundation that supports the suffering Church all over the world.
At the core of the Synod on Synodality conversations in Africa is the African way of living that includes the wisdom and traditions elders on the continent dispense, an official at the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN) has said.
A Togolese Catholic Priest has proposed the splitting of Bishops’ Conferences, Dioceses, Parishes, and other groups that are seen as too large into units where “everyone’s voice is heard”.