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AFRICA

Liberation Theology African Style

CATHOLIC INFORMATION SERVICE FOR AFRICA (CISA)
cisa@wananchi.com / http://www.cisanewsafrica.org
Issue No. 029 Friday, March 27, 2009

OPINION: Pope Benedict Championed Social Justice in Africa

By Peter Henriot SJ

Amidst all the media coverage about tribunals in Zambia, coups in Madagascar
and disputes in FIFA, there have been in the past week some very important news
coming out of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Africa. And the most important
elements in that news, in my opinion, have been about social justice.

What do I mean? Well, I believe that a fair analysis of the Pope’s messages
over the past few days shows some really strong calls for greater commitment to
democracy, development, concern for the poor and respect for African values.

Benedict made some powerful speeches in the two countries he visited, Cameroon
and Angola. They were speeches before crowds of thousands in churches and public
arenas, speeches to leaders of the Catholic Church and other churches, and
speeches to government heads and politicians. In addition, he released a major
document for discussion at an up-coming meeting in Rome later this year, the
so-called “Second African Synod.”

The topic of the synod is “The Church in Africa in Service of Reconciliation,
Justice and Peace.” You can readily see from the topic how timely and relevant
it is to Zambia and to all of Africa. That’s why I think that we are in for
some very lively debates over the next several months about the relationship of
Church and State and about the proper political role that the Church should play
in our country.

Prophetic role

It is clear from Benedict’s speeches and from the Synod document that the
Catholic Church simply rejects out of hand any theology or political philosophy
that would demand that the Church be quiet about the misery of the people (e.g.,
poverty conditions) and the mismanagement of government (e.g., corruption).
According to the Synod document, “the church ought not to retire into
herself.” I take that to mean that it is never the role of the church to
“stay in the sacristy,” as some Zambian politicians like to demand whenever
a Pastoral Letter comes out to challenge the situation in the country!

The March 1 Pastoral Letter of the Zambian Catholic Bishops is well backed up
by the Synod document’s call for a “more prophetic role” of the Church in
the social and political life of the African Continent. And in the Cameroon last
week, Benedict stated quite bluntly, “In the face of suffering or violence,
poverty or hunger, corruption or abuse of power, a Christian can never remain
silent.” And he said, “The bishop’s mission leads him to be the defender
of the rights of the poor….”

Benedict has a strong view about the responsibility of Christian lay people to
be actively engaged in political affairs in order to promote social justice.
“So it is the duty of Christians,” he declared in Yaoundé, “particularly
lay people with social, economic and political responsibilities, to be guided by
the Church’s social teaching, in order to contribute to the building up of a
more just world where everyone can live with dignity.” Certainly Catholics
active in political life in Zambia should pay heed to these words.

While in Angola, he urged the government to do more to fight poverty,
corruption and uphold human rights. In a nationally televised speech, he made a
strong plea to Africans to make the changes needed to improve people’s lives.
He called for a transformation of the Continent, “freeing people from the whip
of greed, violence, disorder and guiding it through the path of those principles
that are indispensable to any modern democracy.”

Those principles, he said, included respect, transparent governance, freedom of
the press, health care and adequate schooling as well as the promotion of human
rights. Africans needed “a firm determination to change hearts and finally put
a stop, once and for all, to corruption.”

Cultural values

Respect for traditional African values is particularly noteworthy in
Benedict's speeches and in the Synod document. This document sums up these
values as expressing “a respect for elders; a respect for women as mothers; a
culture of solidarity, mutual aid, hospitality and unity; a respect for life,
honesty, truth, keeping one’s word....” These values are seen to be
threatened by an aggressive globalization that pushes cultural values and
practices foreign to Africa.

In Angola, Benedict called attention to the abuse of women. "Particularly
disturbing is the crushing yoke of discrimination that women and girls so often
endure, not to mention the unspeakable practice of sexual violence and
exploitation which causes such humiliation and trauma.”

He also addressed the challenge of witchcraft, encouraging Christians to offer
hope “to the many who live in the fear of spirits, of evil powers by whom they
feel threatened, disoriented, even reaching the point of condemning street
children and even the most elderly because - they say - they are
sorcerers."

Relevant challenges

But it is in the Synod document launched by Benedict that I find some of the
most challenging statements about linking authentic faith and social justice.
Some of the critics of the Church’s activism here in Zambia will not be
pleased by the document’s analysis of several burning issues such as failures
by political leaders, exploitation by mining companies and misuse of the media.

In reading the document, I was struck by its immediate relevance in addressing
two current issues in Zambia. First, it speaks favourably of the African Peer
Review Mechanism (APRM) that “seeks to identify the forms and causes of the
corruption which rages on the Continent and goes unpunished.” Would that we
now take up the APRM as an effective anti-corruption tool in this country!

Second, it sounds a clear and cogent warning about the risk of giving into the
campaign for GMOs, which purports to assure food security. This campaign,
according to the document, “should not overlook the true problems of
agriculture in Africa: the lack of cultivatable land, water, energy, access to
credit, agricultural training, local markets, road infrastructures, etc.”
Again, words very relevant to Zambia!

I want to say that I was very pleased by Benedict’s strong social justice
emphasis during his first visit to Africa. His speeches also touched on very
serious spiritual and pastoral issues. But the social justice emphasis was clear
enough to challenge those who want to opt for a church that distances itself
from the real life, day to day struggles of its members. And the Synod document
opens up very promising lines of action to promote a Church “in service to
reconciliation, justice and peace.” We can be strengthened by this leadership
role encouraged by Pope Benedict.

[Peter Henriot is director of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection in
Lusaka, Zambia. phenriot@jesuits.org.zm]


************************************************************

National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe (http://ncrcafe.org)

New Year's resolution: Make 2009 the 'Year of Africa'

By John L Allen Jr Weekly
Created Dec 31 2008 - 09:51
All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr.
Friday, January 2, 2008 - Vol. 8, No. 15 

Editor's Note: We're posting Allen's Friday column early this week
because of the New Year holiday.

'Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions, and in that spirit, I’d
like to propose a resolution for Catholics everywhere: To make 2009 truly the
“Year of Africa” that Pope Benedict XVI intends.

Three major events point to 2009 as a “Year of Africa” at the level of the
Vatican and papal activity: Benedict’s scheduled visit in March to Cameroon
and Angola; a plenary assembly of SECAM, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences
of Africa and Madagascar, to be staged in Rome in September, in order to
galvanize Western interest; and a Synod for Africa, a gathering of bishops from
around the world, to be held in the Vatican during October.

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In a recent interview on Vatican Radio, the papal spokesperson, Jesuit Fr.
Federico Lombardi, laid out the logic for this “preferential option for
Africa” in the coming year.

“The suffering of the African people is enormous,” Lombardi said. “There
are terrifying massacres of the poor, and there are situations of famine, as
we’ve seen in Zimbabwe in recent days.”

The question Benedict XVI intends to pose, Lombardi said, is this: “What must
we do, not only to overcome these dramatic situations, but so that a continent
of such great potential, of such enormous resources – both material and, above
all, human resources – can make its contribution to humanity, and to the
church of today and tomorrow?”

“The commitment of the pope offers us an example,” Lombardi said, “but
all of us must look to this continent in the year that’s coming.”

Without any doubt, Africa is where humanity today is most dramatically walking
the Via Crucis:

    * The number of Africans living in extreme poverty, meaning less than $1 a
day, is projected by the United Nations to rise to 404 million in 2015. Some 800
million Africans suffer from chronic hunger, including 300 million children.
    * Roughly 25 million Africans are living with HIV/AIDS, representing six
percent of the adult population, with an estimated two million deaths each year.
Between 12 and 14 million African children have been orphaned by AIDS.
    * An estimated 11 million African children die each year due to preventable
diseases such as malaria, measles, diarrhea and pneumonia.
    * Forty-two million school-aged children in Africa are not enrolled in
school. In 2000 alone, 860,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa lost teachers due
to AIDS, and it’s estimated that some 15-20 percent of teachers on the
continent have died from the disease.
    * Between 1990 and 2005, twenty-three African nations have been involved in
armed conflicts, claiming tens of millions of lives and, according to an Oxfam
report, squandering almost $300 billion – an annual loss of 15 percent of
Gross Domestic Product. Upheaval in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone,
according to one estimate, has left four million people dead – conflict fueled
in part by a global scramble for Congo’s mineral resources, including cobalt,
which is used in cell phone batteries. On a recent trip to the United States,
Bishop Fulgence Muteba Mugalu of Kilwa said that “Catholics and governments
should understand that each cell phone contains a drop of innocent Congolese
blood.”

Of course, the church’s interest in Africa is not exclusively humanitarian.
Africa also represents the greatest “growth market,” so to speak, for
Catholicism anywhere in the world. The Catholic population of sub-Saharan Africa
exploded from 1.9 million in 1900 to 139 million in 2000, a staggering growth
rate of 6,708 percent. The pope and other senior church leaders perceive a
direct institutional interest in promoting peace and development in Africa, in
order to consolidate these missionary gains.

Hence the obvious resolution for 2009: To do whatever we can, at whatever level
and in whatever context we find ourselves, to promote thought, prayer and action
on behalf of Africa.

To offer some concrete possibilities:

    * Leaders at the parish level could invite a local expert on Africa to
address adult faith formation programs, to speak in the parish school, or to
offer some brief reflections at the end of Sunday Mass. March offers a natural
moment for such events, since Benedict will physically be in Africa at that
time, as well as September and October, during the SECAM assembly and the Synod
for Africa.
    * Few dioceses in the West these days don’t have at least one African
priest. Make that guy a local celebrity in 2009, inviting him to say Mass in
parishes around the diocese, to speak at deanery meetings, to visit Catholic
schools, and so on.
    * Catholic charities already do Herculean work on behalf of Africa, and
2009 represents a natural moment to aggressively promote those activities.
Special collections could be organized, new advocacy campaigns could be
launched, and Africa experts can hit the road to tell their stories.
    * Catholic colleges and universities could launch new programs of academic
study focusing on Africa, as well as high-profile lecture series and other
public events. Inevitably, there’s ferocious disagreement among development
experts about exactly how to promote change: some advocate massive assistance
from developed nations, others focus on economic development and global trade,
still others on fighting corruption. Catholic universities can offer a
laboratory for testing ideas and fostering debate.
    * The Catholic press, both print and broadcast, could prepare a series of
features on Africa, focusing both on the church on the continent as well as
current political and social issues. Catholic media could make a commitment to
integrating news from Africa more systematically into its routine coverage.
    * Catholic institutions of all sorts could be attentive to opportunities
throughout 2009 to shine a spotlight on Africa. For example, whenever a visiting
African bishop, religious sister, or lay activist happens to be in town, make a
big deal out of it. Sponsor a public lecture, arrange for that person to meet
with the local media, and so on. Benedict XVI’s focus on Africa will help
create an atmosphere in which people are paying attention, at least
intermittently; the challenge is to exploit that atmosphere to raise
consciousness at the local level.

While these ideas apply everywhere, they arguably have a special logic in
America. Barack Obama is not only the President-elect of the United States, but
also, effectively, the uncrowned king of Africa. He’s by far the most popular
political figure in the world among Africans right now, a leader invested with
almost messianic expectations. That gives him political capital on the continent
that no other global figure can rival, creating a window of opportunity to make
things happen. American Catholics can help push the Obama White House in this
direction, and mobilize support if it responds.

There are, of course, serious obstacles to be overcome. The economic crisis in
the United States creates a powerful temptation for Americans to turn inward,
focusing on domestic problems. Whatever attention we have left over for foreign
policy may be occupied by the crisis du jour in the Holy Land and by ongoing
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For Catholics, there are also internal reasons why Benedict’s push on Africa
may be a tough sell. “Peace and justice” Catholics tend to occupy the
church’s left wing, which is sometimes crankily resistant to papal
initiatives, even when they cut in a direction liberals otherwise support. For
example, an utterly predictable chorus is likely to arise on the Catholic left
in ’09 to the effect of, “If the pope wants to do something for Africa, why
doesn’t he come out in favor of condoms to fight AIDS?” Such stale polemics
often get in the way of doing something constructive. Conservative Catholics,
meanwhile, talk a good game about “thinking with the church,” but can be
selective in their follow-through. If the pope criticizes abortion, they’re
ready to mount the barricades; if he tackles poverty and war, many will quietly
suggest he’s out of his depth, or that he’s wading into matters of
prudential judgment that don’t oblige conscience.

All of that, however, makes turning 2009 into a “Year of Africa”
complicated, not impossible. For reasons both pastoral and prophetic, Africa is
a critical proving ground for the Catholic future. This is one case, moreover,
in which no one can complain about papal “silence”.

The drama of ’09 is not whether the pope will lead; it’s whether the rest
of us will follow. Doing so is a resolution well worth making.


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