Addis Ababa, 17 September, 2020 / 9:05 pm (ACI Africa).
The leadership of the Catholic Church in Ethiopia has reached out to the Government requesting for permanent residence permits for foreign missionaries in the country.
The request, if favorably considered, would benefit the 429 missionaries serving in the Horn of Africa nation, who the Catholic leaders say, “serve humanity around the world regardless of borders and demarcations” by the universal nature of the Catholic Church.
“Many foreign missionaries serve Ethiopian from their youth to retirement for more than 50 years. They learned all the traditions and local languages as well,” the Secretary General of the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat (ECS), Fr. Teshome Fikre has been quoted as saying during a Thursday, September 17 bilateral meeting with immigration officials in the country.
He added in reference to the foreign missionaries, “They like being in Ethiopia and many of them even don’t want to think of going back to their countries even after their retirement. They always say they want to die here in Ethiopia.”
