Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides) - Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe at the end of his five year mandate as head of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples was appointed Archbishop of Naples by the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI. His Eminence kindly accepted to speak to Fides New Agency about the future that awaits him as Metropolitan Archbishop of Naples.
Your Eminence, five years ago you crossed the threshold of Propaganda Fide building just appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples by Pope John Paul II. With which sentiments ?
I arrived at Propaganda Fide after the thrilling experience of the Great Jubilee of the Year Two Thousand which brought millions of faithful from the local Churches all over the world to Rome to celebrate with the Holy Father, after a long period of preparation and reflection on specially chosen themes. That intense and unique Year marked by hard work and profoundly spiritual activity in close and almost daily contact with Pope John Paul II, deepened my appreciation for the marvellous richness of the Catholic Church, universal, varied and multiform in her realities but One and granitic in her foundation, Jesus Christ. Moreover, since the purpose of the Jubilee was to celebrate the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, the One Sent by the Father to bring Salvation to the world, those Jubilee events were all focussed on the person and message of Our Lord.
If during the Jubilee we worked to welcome Catholics coming to Rome for the far corners of the earth, at Propaganda Fide it is quite the opposite: our job here is to look to the world, to the two thirds of humanity who have yet to hear the Good News. As I have often said on various occasions my arrival at CEP was the fulfilment in a way of a long nurtured aspiration: when still a high school student my heart burned with desire to be a missionary. Nor can I forget that I was born in the same region as Blessed Paolo Manna, who founded the Pontifical Missionary Union and the PIME Seminary at Ducenta. After many changes in my life as a priest, always marked by total docility to God’s will, at Propaganda Fide I had the grace of throwing myself wholeheartedly into the world of missions.
And today five years later…
As I told those who have worked with me in these years, I thank the Lord for this experience which has enriched me enormously, giving me greater insight into the situations and difficulties of peoples and cultures many geographically distant from Rome but ever closer in the globalised world of today. In these five years I learned much and received much. I experienced the extraordinary vivacity of missionary work, its sorrows and suffering, but also its joys.
I consider it a grace from the Lord to have been able to see for myself the situations of certain Christian communities, like for example the one in Mongolia, where the Gospel is once again being announced after a long period of silence, and to help them take their first steps in this new life. How can I forget the promising opening of the Church in Vietnam to which I made a pastoral visit which was considered “history-making” for that country. I visited all three of the country’s ecclesiastical regions, I had meetings with the bishops, priests, men and women religious. I had the joy of celebrating the priestly ordination of 57 deacons in the presence of a deeply moved and extremely happy vast crowd of people packed inside the cathedral and outside in the square and the adjoining streets. I witnessed that the Church in Vietnam is living an important page in its history, a page of joy and of hope for the future. Most interesting were my visits to Kuwait and the Arabian peninsula where I had the joy of ordaining two Apostolic Vicars as Bishops. In these Catholic communities living in extremely difficult and sensitive situations I sensed the presence of the Lord urging them not to be afraid because He is with them until the end of time.
My visit to Sudan gave me a chance to experience the situation there, extremely complex from the religious, social and economic point of view. The sad remnants of a long civil war are still visible: guerrilla warfare, violence, vandalism… not to mention destruction of structures, rampant disease and extreme poverty. Many of the Church’s priests and religious are among the many suffering from civil war trauma. Our visit to a refugee camp in Darfur was the most painful and distressful event on that mission. Nevertheless amidst so much suffering I witnessed the joy of those Catholics, their enthusiasm and their pride in the faith and the support the faith gives them as they face enormous difficulties .
I visited another African country with a process of peace to be consolidated after 30 years of civil war, Angola. At the Catholic cathedral in Luanda, together with the Angolan bishops I thanked the Lord for the gift of peace which put an end to Angola’s cruel and atrocious tragedy of war and fratricidal fighting between brothers. A tragic legacy of that long war, here too, are the refugee camps which I visited to offer a word of comfort and encouragement for the future.
I shared moments of joy and festivity with the Catholic communities in Benin where I presided the Mass to close the National Eucharistic Congress in November 2002, and in Uganda for the Centenary of the faith in the archdiocese of Mbarara.
Unforgettable and thrilling with its Latin American warmth was the event of the 2nd American Mission Congress November 2003 the first major missionary event of the new millennium. I saw the Church which is in America, giving unreservedly of all she possesses, giving of her littleness, her poverty, her martyrdom to obey Jesus’ missionary command to go to all peoples and all cultures to proclaim the Gospel.
In Albania I was able to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s visit on 25 April 1993, and I saw, there too, after the long night of persecution, a new dawning of faith in hope but also with trials and difficulties for the Catholics and the consolidation of the different communities .
And on to Mexico, Azerbaijan, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan. Despite my limits and inadequacy, I tried to imitate the spirit Saint Paul, consoling the grieving, rejoicing with the joyful, sharing anxieties and concerns, results obtained or goals to achieve. My mind is crowded with many faces and situations which I present to the Lord every day at Mass. There is no doubt missionary work is not easy and it faces no few problems and challenges, old and new. But one this is certain: if the Lord calls us to such a demanding task it is because He will not fail to supply us with the means to achieve it.
What do you take with you ?
I carry with me the heroic abnegation of so many men and women missionaries living in situations of enormous sacrifice but always happy to proclaim the Lord and spend their life for this cause to the last breath. I carry with me the blood shed by dozens of bishops, priests, religious and laity all over the world killed simply because they were Christians, because in the name of their faith they opposed what was contrary to the Gospel and the dignity of the human person. And I still hold in my heart the joy of so many Christian communities born in situations of suffering, oppression, poverty but firm in the faith even at times of persecution and able today to look with sure hope to the future, which is the future of the whole Church.
How can I ever forget the many young men preparing for the priesthood, the young men and women preparing for the religious life, in mission territories, one of the richest fruits of the sacrifices of the missionaries who devoted their lives to planting the Church in places where the name of Jesus Christ had not been heard. And again the “new” missionary commitment of so many lay Catholics, members of movements or communities, whole families who leave everything to obey the Lord’s command. In brief, I carry with me the conviction that the Church lives, even when she faces troubles or oppression; that it is good to be a Christian, it is a source of joy even when there are difficulties, and that still today the Lord walks with every man and woman.
Sad to say many mission territories lives terrible situations which you have seen with your own eyes: never ending wars, violence, disease, extreme poverty, corruption, discrimination …
Like Simon of Cyrene in the Gospel called to help the Lord carry his cross, on my pastoral visits I witnessed these situations and sought to help these brothers and sisters struggling at many different latitudes under a heavy and at times overwhelming cross. With my presence in many situations of suffering I wanted to show the solidarity of the Church and to say that even in tragic circumstances the Church continues to preach the Gospel of love, justice and peace. I was able to encourage the authorities and all people of good will to take decisive measures to put an end to these situations. I offered words of comfort and gratitude to those who try to alleviate in some way the suffering of the people, suffering which is never an end in itself. For those with the gift of faith, after the darkness of Calvary comes the dawn of the Resurrection. I encouraged them on their journey, I shared their anxieties and I urged them to hold fast to hope which cannot fail because it comes from God.
If you were to name a priority which marked your experience as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, what would it be ?
In these five years I gave special attention to formation at every level. I am thinking of the Courses for Bishops which brought newly appointed Ordinaries of mission territories to Rome for a few weeks to listen to lectures on fundamental aspects of their ministry in relation to the territories in which they serve. Our lecturers were prefects of Vatican Congregations and other prominent experts with whom the bishops were able to engage in frank and constructive dialogue. We also organised a Masters Degree in Development which inaugurated a new way of giving aid to Africa a stop ahead of the outdated concept of assistance: a group of young men from 17 different African countries, selected by the respective Bishops’ Conference are taking the course promoted by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the Università Cattolica of Milan and the Pontifical Urban University. When these young men return to their country they will be ready to contribute to the economic and social development of their countries. One recent major event to mark the 40th anniversary of Vatican II’s missionary decree Ad Gentes was a Congress organised in collaboration with Urban University. The Congress shed light on the importance in our day of the missionary mandate, and identified new paths for mission in the third millennium. These were some of the major undertakings in these years which come to mind, but it is impossible to mention here many other minor initiatives, no less important, pastoral visits, meetings, missionary congresses, courses in missionary formation and animation …
Now Pope Benedict XVI has called you to another demanding pastoral task : to proclaim Jesus Christ in a context geographically smaller but just as complex, not unlike many other developing areas in the West which present situations of chaotic urbanisation accompanied by pockets of poverty. Here too the Church struggles to build the civilisation of Love based on respect among persons from all over the planet each with his or her own story and needs. A sizeable challenge …
I am profoundly grateful to the Holy Father for this appointment and for what he has done for the missionary Church and for the Church in Naples. Secondly I would underline that perhaps in some cases, too much emphasis is laid on the alleged difference between clergy working in Curia departments and offices and those with the responsibilities of a diocese; as if a prefect or secretary or any cleric employed in a Congregation could work without coming into contact with people, their lives, problems, aspirations, without celebrating the sacraments, without striving to imitate the Good Shepherd. We are all at the service of the One Lord, the One Church, although our duties differ. In these five years as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples I have felt I was fully a Bishop of this immense diocese of over one thousand ecclesiastical circumscriptions, tens of thousands of priests, religious, missionaries...no territory has been for me merely a point on the map or a file in the archive and wherever I was unable to go personally or to send one of my co-workers on my behalf, I always tried to make direct contact with those who operate in that reality or territory .
To Naples I carry baggage of my experience in Brazil where I worked in the Nunciature but also visited the slums and tried to alleviate the suffering of those people, my experience of many meetings with priests from all over the world when I was Secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, who unburdened their hearts confiding to me their concerns and also their consolations. The training-ground of Propaganda Fide extended my horizons still further across the world from one continent to the other.
The plight of people in refugee camps, or those continually forced to move because of war and violence, those without a roof over their heads, is not so different from that of thousands living in degraded districts of the world’s great cities, struggling with unemployment, drug addiction, delinquency, insufficient housing, inadequate healthcare. The labour of many priests, religious and lay people fighting to eliminate situations of injustice and poverty often clashes with persons who prosper in illegality, in Italy and the rest of Europe, in America north and south, in Africa. The Church has no political solutions to propose, this is not her job, but she has the duty entrusted to her by Christ to remind man of his dignity and society of the values of the Gospel which cannot be renounced, otherwise she would betray her mission. Only if hearts turn to God will a new model of life be possible based on respect. Justice, putting to good use many positive natural elements in human nature. This is the great challenge which awaits me and every Christian.
How much of the missionary spirit of your youth remains still in your heart?
To some people the pastoral government of an archdiocese, even an important one and with such glorious history as Naples, might appear to limit the horizons of missionary activity but I disagree. The viewpoint changes but the command of Jesus is the same whatever the latitude to which He sends us. From which ever way you look at it the missionary task is immense, it concerns every baptised Christian and drives us over and beyond all boundaries, so that men and women of today, so discouraged and anxious, may reach self-fulfilment and authentic happiness in the One who died and rose from the dead for our salvation.
Difficulties and situations change but man, despite his merits and his defects, his virtues and sins, never changes, he is always the same created in the image and likeness of God. Years of experience of facing many apparently insurmountable situations will help me reawaken in all men and women of goodwill whom I encounter on my new path, the will to react, to let themselves be caught up in the work of changing according to God’s plan, even the reality of a city of Naples which has resources perhaps dormant but immense.
We are encouraged by Naples’ vast host of saints, beginning with its first bishop, Saint Aspreno, to the most recent to be beatified Sister Maria della Passione. Also the next major national Church event, the 4th National Convention of the Church to be held in Verona, (northern Italy) with the theme “Witnesses of the Risen Lord, hope for the world” sustains us on this path, giving us hope. Christian hope is not simply a “hope all goes well” wish, it is a virtue, its origin, motive and object are God Himself. It means putting our hope in the promises of Christ, working in this life to reach eternal happiness. This will be my mission in Naples. When I accepted my appointment I said my heart beats for Naples and now I add, and it will always beat also for mission. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 2/6/2006 - Righe 197, parole 2.838)
