Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Brazzaville (Agenzia Fides) – “On this delightful occasion, as Prefect of the Roman Dicastery responsible for the Evangelization of Peoples, I am extremely pleased to be able to be here among you to join in celebrating this great event for the Church,” stated Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, in his homily during a Mass celebrated in honor of the 125th anniversary of the evangelization of the Republic of Congo.
The Mass, presided by Cardinal Dias, was celebrated on September 6 in Brazzaville, the country’s capital, in the presence of civil authorities and thousands of faithful. Focusing on the missionary vocation of the Church and of every Christian, the Cardinal mentioned the first missionaries that began the evangelization of Congo in 1883: “To these workers for the Gospel, we offer our sincerest homage and our profound gratitude for their heroic courage and their selfless service as missionaries.” Cardinal Dias also called to mind the memory of Cardinal Emile Biayenda, former Archbishop of Brazzaville, who was killed on March 22, 1977. “The testimony of his life, entirely dedicated to the cause of evangelization and completed with the highest sacrifice of giving his life, should be a source of inspiration for the Church in Congo in this, the Third Millenium. Let us pray that Heaven may intercede for us and accompany us.”
The 125th anniversary of evangelization is an occasion to “for measuring the depth of our faith and the quality of our Christian testimony, to discover the maturity of the Church in Congo,” Cardinal Dias said, recalling the fact that the Church in Africa “is alive, dynamic, committed, and continually growing.” This is a positive note that should, nonetheless, the Cardinal said, lead Catholics to “recognize with honesty and humility that there is still much work left to be done so that the faith of us, Christians, may be more solid and pure and that our witness may be deeper and more faithful to Jesus Christ.”
What are the present challenges for evangelization in Africa?
Cardinal Dias mentioned two: inculturation of the faith and the missionary dimension of the Church-Family of God. As to the first point, the Cardinal said: “Just as a body cannot survive without a soul, thus the purely exterior inculturation of the Gospel would be meaningless if the culture itself is not evangelized. Thus, the Church’s challenge in Congo is not easy, in promoting a full, authentic, and profound inculturation of the Gospel in the concrete life of Christians, and assuring the human and moral quality of her priests, religious, and faithful.”
As to the second challenge, Cardinal Dias recalled that “the Church is called to give with great generosity to others – beginning with the local populations themselves – all that she has received freely and in abundance, through the workers that the Lord has sent to His vineyard over the course of these 125 years.”
The Cardinal concluded his homily by asking the faithful to “let themselves be led by the Spirit of Christ,” in order to be faithful witnesses of the Gospel and illumine the darkness of society. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 10/9/2008)
