The Holy Father begins a three-day apostolic visit to the West African country of Benin today. He is doing so to mark 150 years of Christianity in that country and to present a document entitled Africae Munus on the Church’s future in that continent. The country has some personal significance to the Pope, as he was good friends with the late Cardinal Gatin with whom he worked for many years in the Vatican.
I will post on the document after I have read it. I have a sense it will be talked about for quite sometime in the next number of years because the Church on that continent is thriving in many ways, and beset with mammoth problems on the other.
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1104552.htm) is reporting on the trip. Log on to read.
One interesting thing the Holy Father is saying is that the Church’s message must be simple and concrete, and not seen as something European and unintelligible to Africans. By extension, I would suspect he would say the same if talking to other cultures. I was happy to read this, for it brings to mind the call for evangelization from the Church Fathers at Vatican II, and echoes the manner of speaking that Papa Luciani used so often in his preaching to the people entrusted to him.
God bless the Holy Father in his travels.
