Pope encourages southern African bishops in their pastoral challenges

April 25, 2014 - ‎Pope Francis has encouraged the southern African bishops in their pastoral care that is often marked by difficulties such as lack of resources and vocations and declining family life and morals. Some 28 bishops of Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland who form the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) met Pope Francis as a group on Friday, during the course of their ‘ad limina’ visit to Rome, that heads of dioceses make every 5 years or so to report on the state of their jurisdiction.

In a written message handed to them the Holy Father commended the labours of nearly 2 centuries of foreign missionaries in the region saying the what they sowed is now growing by itself. However he said there are challenges such as distances, dearth of material resources and ‎limited access to the sacraments. The Pope appreciated the concerted effort to train lay catechists for the transmission of faith in the family. “Priests and religious brothers and sisters,” he said, “are of one mind and heart in their service of God’s ‎most vulnerable sons and daughters: widows, single mothers, the divorced, children at risk and ‎especially the several million AIDS orphans, many of whom head households in rural areas.” Despite being a minority, Catholics are generous in numerous projects of charity bring the hope and love of Christ to the needy. The Pope also mentioned pastoral challenges such as fewer children and vocations, Catholics turning away from the Church. He said the growing rate of abortion, separation, divorce and ‎increase in violence against women and children, threaten the sanctity of ‎marriage, the stability of life in the home and consequently the life of society as a whole. “I am confident that you will not weaken in your resolve to teach the truth “in season and ‎out of season”, sustained by prayer and discernment, and always with great compassion. ‎

Besides encouraging the bishops’ solidarity for the vast numbers of ‎unemployed with material support, the pope urged also called for spiritual ‎assistance and sound moral guidance, remembering that the absence of Christ is the greatest poverty ‎of all. He urged the defence of the holiness and indissolubility of ‎Christian matrimony, through clear doctrine supported by the witness of committed married couples. ‎Christian matrimony is a lifelong covenant of love between one man and one woman; it entails real ‎sacrifices in order to turn away from illusory notions of sexual freedom and in order to foster ‎conjugal fidelity. Pope Francis also urged the bishops to address social ills such as dishonesty and the plight of refugees and migrants.