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.