KENYA: Nuncio appeals for strong Participation of the Faithful in the missionary work

The Apostolic Nuncio to Kenya Most Rev Alain Paul Lebeaupin has called the laity to strongly participate in the missionary work of the Church in collaboration with the Bishops, Clergy and Religious as one way of owning the mission of the Church on the continent Church.

The Apostolic Nuncio said this during the Holy Mass he presided over to mark the officially opening of a ten-day regional meeting of national directors of Pontifical Missionary Societies (PMS) which started on October 26, at the Resurrection Garden, Nairobi, Kenya.

Speaking before 75 PMS National Directors from African English speaking countries the Apostolic Nuncio praised the work of PMS in Africa, observing that the continent has substantially benefited from the financial support of PMS. “The Church projects on the continent have benefited quite a lot from PMS generous hand” he said adding that “We should reciprocate this by being owners of the church’s mission work.”

He said Africa has always witnessed a rich soil of evangelization and it is up to the local faithful to take charge of exploiting this phenomenon. By strong participation of the faithful in the evangelization work, the local Church will be proving that it is more than a Bishop, the clergy or the religious.  And therefore it becomes a challenge to us all that we must “own” the Mission work of the Church.

The laity will have to be educated on the issue, while the Church hierarchy will have to do a lot on this; educating the faith on the need to “own” the Church’s Mission work, he stressed.

The theme of the meeting is: “How to make the Catholic Church in Africa more missionary minded in the light of new evangelization.”

The ten-day meeting is scheduled to end on November 3.

Source: AMECEA Social Communications office