Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
SMA
Luanda (Agenzia Fides) - "After eight years of service in Italy, I am joining the parish of the Sagrada Família, recently born in the district of Desvio da Barra, one of the many new anonymous suburbs of Luanda", says Father Luigino Frattin, priest of the Society for African Missions (SMA) who returned to the diocese of Caxito which he had left in 2013. "I had left Angola in full economic growth, with good development prospects - explains the missionary.
On my return, I found a country wounded by social malaise and not only. There is economic misery, unemployment, especially among young people, wages are frozen, people are struggling to make ends meet. But there is also a moral and spiritual malaise that leaves people at the mercy of the loss of values and corruption that pollutes human relationships at all levels".
Speaking of the synodal journey of the small Christian communities in which he is serving, Fr. Frattin says that in small communities Christians strive to walk together every day in co-responsibility and in the commitment to grow in faith and charity, not forgetting anyone. "Now it is a question of expanding this synodal spirit, welcoming the newcomers, valuing their gifts, making them feel at ease in an open and welcoming community".
The parish entrusted to the SMA includes a territory of new neighborhoods, houses, tin shacks, brick houses and concrete blocks, which are growing visibly, close to where the new port of Luanda will rise. In the vicinity, the land is almost all occupied by people who came from the city, fleeing the unhealthy and overcrowded suburbs, which have become war zones due to the presence of gangs of criminals who are engaged in theft and extortion. (LF/AP) (Agenzia Fides, 16/2/2022)
