Congo -Brazzaville’s Bishops issue their New Year message

The Bishops of the Republic of the Congo also known as Congo -Brazzaville have used their Christmas and New Year message to call for the protection and respect of the environment. 

In a pastoral statement addressed to the faithful and made available to the media, the Bishops decry the fast-disappearing forests.

“At the beginning of the Christmas season and for this New Year, we invite you to respect the environment, the magnificent nature that God has given us. ‘Save our common home,' as Pope Francis reminds us. Indeed, we are blessed by God. He gave us a beautiful country, with incredible riches: A fertile land that is rich and endowed with raw material, forests and savannahs, the sea and rivers that crisscross our country. All these are an expression of God’s goodness to us,” the Bishops write.

They add, “In general, we can see the misuse of the benefits of nature and the degradation of it: Forests are disappearing little by little because of excessive exploitation for wood and the lack of a policy for Reforestation in the country,” The Bishops assert. 

According to the Bishops, sometimes whole forests are burned down by malicious people.  The Bishops also draw attention to the management of waste in Congo’s towns and cities.

“In most of our cities, lanes are full of garbage; grand avenues are losing their shine more and more;  gutters are blocked, or nonexistent; rivers flowing through cities have become makeshift dumping sites for waste,” the Bishops observe. 

The Bishops are alarmed by the increasing contamination  of the sources of drinking water; pollution by industrial smoke; the poisoning of the soil and environment by pesticides and fungicides, weedkillers and other toxic agrochemicals.  

The prelates invite people to internalise the message of Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato sí.

“Beloved sons and daughters, we invite you to a true "ecological conversion", a conversion (metanoia) that involves respect for nature and education, “ the Bishops say. 

The call on the Congolese government to inculcate a sense of civic education in citizens and for the government to do its part in caring for the environment.  

“The State also has the mission, the responsibility to educate the people to a national and ecological consciousness to help citizens respect the environment and (embrace) a culture of cleanliness. Perhaps we should return to the notions of civic education in schools (as in the past). We need to teach and inculcate these concepts in the minds of the Congolese to end bad habits and gradually take on healthy habits of no longer throwing what has been used on the streets or the floor but in garbage cans or appropriate places. It is a whole school (of life),” the Bishops pastoral statement reads, in part.

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