Pope Francis’ message in Korea finds resonance with Africa

(Vatican Radio) On his arrival in Seoul, to start his apostolic visit to Korea, Pope Francis started his official engagements with a speech at the Blue House. The Blue House is the South Korean president’s official residence.

At the Blue House meeting with Government and civic authorities, Korean politicians and members of the Diplomatic Corps, Pope Francis told the Korean people, “a wise and great people do not only cherish their ancestral traditions; they also treasure their young, seeking to pass on the legacy of the past and to apply it to the challenges of the present.”

Pope Francis’ words in Korea will find resonance in Africa which will see in his words, a welcome affirmation of their own traditions and way of life. It is an affirmation which says one can still be authentically Christian and Catholic and still cherish one’s traditional values.

Although things are changing rapidly, in Africa, most of Africa is still traditional and values respect for elders and ancestral traditions. The older generation worries about the erosion of African values among its young people.

The words of Pope Francis, in Korea, almost echo those of Saint John Paul II when in 1994, he presided at the Mass of the First African Synod in St. Peter’s Basilica. In his homily, then Pope John Paul II said, he saluted the people of Africa “especially their religious traditions, in which is expressed the ardent search for the one God through veneration of their ancestors”. These traditions, Pope John Paul II said, are still the heritage of the majority of the inhabitants of Africa. “They are traditions which are open to the Gospel, open to the truth, expressed today by Saint John, who affirms that Jesus is the Messiah: ‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child’ "

Pope John Paul II then went on to say, the “sons and daughters of Africa love life. It is precisely this love for life which leads them to give such great importance to the veneration of their ancestors. They believe instinctively that the dead continue to live and remain in communion with them. Is this not in some way a preparation for belief in the Communion of Saints? The peoples of Africa respect the life which is conceived and born. They rejoice in this life. They reject the idea that it can be destroyed, even when the so-called "progressive civilisations" would like to lead them in this direction. And practices hostile to life are imposed on them by means of economic systems which serve the selfishness of the rich”.

Africa would do well to follow the thread of Pope Francis’ words. As Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest writing for La Civilta Cattolica, “Wake up World” has said, previously, the speeches and manner in which Pope Francis speaks have a certain rhythm that undulates progressively; one would do well to follow with care because what he says is fed by the living relations he experiences with his interlocutors.

(P.Samasumo) e-mail: [e-mail]