AFRICANEWS
NIGERIANew Paths for the Churchby Luka Mwale
The church should implement her prophetic mission in several ways: by genuinely representing Africa in places where political and economic decisions are made and implemented; by playing a role of advocacy in identifying injustices and pressing for their redress; by being arbiter and promoter of justice and fundamental human values and by living as a prophetic community which overcomes violence through the ethic of non-violence learned from Christ. The missionary should be seen as a prophetic stranger who works to promote human dignity in opposition to a dominant culture of injustice. Christians should become agents of reconciliation, identifying those in need of it, promoting it in a fundamental and continuous way and the Sacrament of Reconciliation should be seen also as a process of healing of memories, with a strong social dimension. We should design ways to nurture the self-confidence of people, particularly at the grassroots level so that we will define ourselves instead of yielding to definitions of ourselves by others, and become subjects and agents of our own political and economic liberation. One way to work in this direction would be to encourage participatory development in which the people control the whole process." These are quotes from the proposals (still in a draft form) issued by a congress organised by the Spiritan International School of Theology in Enugu (Nigeria), in collaboration with other missionary and Catholic institutes, from November 11 to 17. The congress whose theme was Africa: Towards Priorities of Mission, aimed at reflecting on the crises bedevilling the African continent and indicating paths for overcoming them. It brought together about 70 participants, two thirds from Africa and one third from the world community. "Our congress had the aim of bringing together people of hope, people committed to the creation of a better tomorrow for Africans and for the world community," says the congress co-ordinator, Father E. E. Uzukwu. Participation was strictly by invitation and the participants had been selected either because of their experience on the various areas of life which challenge Africans today and/or because of their expertise in proposing solutions to these problems. The congress followed the process of the inductive method, beginning with the narration of experiences by some participants. The narratives shaped the themes to be discussed in the workshops. In addition, four major papers were presented in the plenary assembly.
Discussions, Interactions"It is in this process of discussions, interactions, sharing experiences in the workshops, assembling emerging conclusions for debates in plenary assembly that our research came up with proposals on how to shape the mission of the church in Africa at the beginning of the third millennium," Fr. Uzukwu says.The Nigerian reality helped the participants to stay on concrete ground. A Swiss priest was received by a welcoming party at Lagos airport and then put in a taxi with a seminarian to go to the guest house for the night before moving to Enugu, 500 km away, by plane. The taxi was not yet out of the airport parking lot when four policemen stopped it, physically removed the seminarian a few dozen metres away and then extorted with threats and a little manhandling $200 from their victim. Less than two hours later, a group of three North American theologians, accompanied by a Nigerian priest, were held for half an hour for the same reason and because of their determination not to give in to threats. Only an officer who passed by and recognised the Nigerian priest saved them form the ordeal. Travelling from Lagos to Enugu and back by plane was another experience of constant attempts to extort money, by the check-in clerks, the porters and the flight attendants. Indeed, the reality of corruption, injustice, lack of respect for the human rights of everybody was always constantly present in front of the eyes of the congress participants.
The Wealth of LifeAn overview of the experiences narrated the first day gives an idea of the wealth of life and wisdom present at the congress."The African Diaspora in the United States of America" was the topic expounded by Dr. Jamie Phelps, an African-American lady professor of Theology in Chicago (USA); "The Experience of the African-Brazilians" was narrated by Antonio Aparecido da Silva, a priest and professor of Moral Theology at Sao Paulo University (Brazil), who is himself a nephew of slaves; "Inculturation among the Ojibwe Indians of North America" by Carl Starkloff of Regis College (Canada); "A Mission of Vision" by Eric de Rosny, a French missionary working in Douala (Cameroun), who became friends with the local waganga (traditional healers) and had his eyes opened by them so that he can see the spiritual reality in the same way of the traditional healers. Dr Steve Nkom, a Nigerian Sociologist and Fr. Matthew Kukah, Secretary General of the Nigerian Episcopal Conference, spoke on inter-religious conflict in Nigeria; Fr. John Skinnader, Director of the Justice and Peace Office of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Rome presented his experience of inter-ethnic conflicts-relations in Rwanda; Prof. Theresia Mbari-Hinga, a Kenyan teaching in a North American university gave her reflection on inter-ethnic conflict in Kenya, Sr. Maura Browne of Africa Faith and Justice Network (USA) spoke about the political-economic oppression and how it affects Africa; Fr. Kizito Sesana of Nairobi presented his experience of missionary to the most abandoned areas of Sudan; Cecilia Asogwa, a Nigerian social worker, told the audience of her experience about the empowerment of rural women. Prof. Kabasele-Lumabala of Mazenod Mission Institute in Kinshasa (Zaire) talked about the particular contribution of Africa to Christian mission today, and Prof. Mick Ndungu, Rector of the same mission institute in Kinshasa, spoke about the identity of the missionary in Africa today.
Group WorkStarting from such vast and diversified experiences the group work, assisted by two other major interventions every day, had the difficult task of detecting and giving shape to a vision of the mission of the Church in Africa.Reading carefully the final resolution of the Congress, it seem that there are new dimensions entering in the self perception of the missionary Church. For instance there is an acute awareness that the church is called to a new ministry in peace and reconciliation. While in recent past the sentence "justice and peace" became common in church parlance and gave the name to international and local commissions, in fact peace was always overshadowed by justice. Now "peace" becomes a major issue on its own, and the means to achieve peace, to maintain it, to foster it, to reconcile in true peace former opponents become object of attentive studies. Another trend is the major importance given to conscience, awareness, African spirituality, all the spiritual world-vision that is shaping the mind of the person and of a community. There is nothing dramatically new in the final recommendations. As always at the end of such congresses there was a tangible feeling of frustration in the attitude of the participants. The source being the awareness that the call from God is urgent, demanding, compelling, strong and clear but the capacity of the Christian community to answer it, starting from the very authors of the recommendations, is so limited and hindered by sin.
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