Pope Francis asks African theologians to support the “struggle for life, peace, and hope” of the continent’s peoples, in a video message released July 19, 2022, on the occasion of the second Pan-African Congress on ‘Theology, Society, and Pastoral Life’ taking place in Nairobi, Kenya.
In the message, the Pope encourages lay and religious theologians, gathered at the Catholic University of East Africa until July 22, to continue their efforts to “to make African dreams come true (social, cultural, ecological and ecclesial dreams).”
He urged them to work together, quoting the African proverb: “Mountains never meet, but people do.”
“In my visits to Africa,” he said, “I have always been impressed by the faith and resilience of these peoples.
“Africa always surprises us,” says the head of the Catholic Church, as he had already said during his press conference on his return from the Central African Republic on November 30, 2015.
And he urges:
Bring out the best of you in these reflections so that the result will be a surprise, so that that African creation that surprises us all can be born.
Because Africa is poetry.
The Pontiff, who had to postpone his planned trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in early July because of his sore knee, is asking the continent’s theologians to develop a “wisdom theology” for the “transformation of the whole world.”
And today we celebrate...