Somalia: a country with no State, no rights, a disappearing Church
Slowly but steadily, over the past 21 years, the Catholic Church has been disappearing
in Somalia, at least in its structures: all Churches and Church buildings have been
destroyed. Only about 100 Somali Catholics remain in the country, and they are dispersed
and prohibited from gathering together.
The dramatic situation of Catholics
and of the Catholic Church in Somalia is described by Franciscan father Giorgio Bertin,
who has been the Bishop of Djibouti for the past ten years, and Apostolic Administrator
of Mogadishu, a diocese which covers the entire territory of Somalia since 1989, when
the last Bishop of Mogadishu, (Bishop Pietro Salvatore Colombo OMF) was murdered on
July 9 in his Cathedral in Mogadishu.
Speaking to Vatican Radio's Father Moses
Hamungole, who is attending the AMECEA Plenary Assembly in Nairobi, Bishop Bertin
revealed that his only contacts with the Somali catholics are by telephone as for
the last two years he has not able to travel to Central Somalia where most of them
live.
Bishop Bertin says he continues to receive many manifestations of support
and solidarity, the problem - he says - is the country itself that has been without
an effective government - or State - for the past 21 years. So, he continues, the
support he asks for is for help to rebuild a State in Somalia, because the rebuilding
of a State would mean an effective government, and then probably the possibility for
the Church to act more directly and to be openly present.
Bishop Bertin says
that during these dark years there have been no less than 15 internationally organized
conferences for reconciliation and peace. Unfortunately - he says - up to now, they
have not produced what we had hoped. One of the reasons - in his mind -is that there
has been a lack of serious committed leadership on the part of the Somalis themselves.
Unfortunately most of the so-called Somali leaders with whom the international community
deals with, he points out, are just interested in their own business and affairs.
Instead of thinking in a selfless way of the good of the people, they think only of
their own personal gain, or of rthe gains of their own clans. So unless the Somalis
themselves express a serious leadership whose interest would be the restoration of
the state and the good of their own people, we will not be going far. International
troops have been sent in, and the African Union is trying to do something, but bishop
Bertin says, there is a lack of serious committment on the part of Somalis.