Vatican City (Fides Service) - After his five day visit to Angola 25-29 October, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, shared with Fides Service his impression of the situation in the local Church and the country.

Your Eminence tell us about your visit and about the situation of the Church in Angola
The encounter with the Church in Angola went beyond all expectations: I found it well prepared, with solid roots, despite the long civil war, vital and vivacious, deeply rooted not only in the religious field but also in society. The Church is helping with all its forces to consolidate the peace process with a series of concrete actions. The Angolan Church is concerned with every aspect of daily life, and values all its components and institutions: oratories, hospitals, individual catechists and lay Catholics.

Can Angola be an example for other countries tormented by civil war?
Undoubtedly Angola can be a workshop which serves as an example for many African countries sadly today struggling with bloody conflicts apparently endless. The peace process, installed after decades of war, can and must be a stimulus for all Africans. "Never again war!" I said in Luanda on Sunday October 27 during the solemn concelebration of Mass with all the Bishops and the Nuncio, and the call was welcomed with a warm burst of applause. "Never again war" must be the cry of African peoples and individuals. The Church is always ready to spend her energies to support the cause of peace at every latitude and in any context: in Angola the Church has played and continues to play an important role recognised also by the civic authorities whom I met during my visit. The same could happen in many other places and not only in Africa.

In Angola thousands live in extreme poverty, what is the Church doing on this front?
Between 2 and 4 million people in Angola live in unimaginable misery, three out of five children die of hunger. The only help they can rely on comes from the local Church and the missionaries. I visited one of the many refugee camps near the capital and I saw for myself the drama of life in these places of extreme poverty: people without a roof, clothing, a piece of bread, prey to diseases so easily cured in the so-called developed world but lethal in Angola. One sign of hope is the fact that despite hardship the poor continue to smile, to sing, to bear themselves with great dignity: this is the hope that the Church sustains as best she can but now international help is needed to ensure that hope is not snuffed out. There is need of general mobilisation, a reawakening of the international conscience, so as not to betray the poor and to save from oblivion the situation in Angola, so that tragedy will not fall on tragedy. It is unacceptable that the international media systematically ignore the millions who struggle every day between life and death. (Fides Service 7/11/2002)