SECAM: In View of 50th Anniversary of CEPACS, SECAM Calls for Increased Visibility
Secretary General of SECAM and other delegates during press release
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
As the Church in Africa anticipants to mark 50 years of Pan African Episcopal Committee for Social Communications (CEPACS) in the month of November this year, an official from the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) has stressed the need for increased visibility of this body mandated to animate, coordinate, form and train media practitioners at all levels in the continent.
“There was a time when we had a long silence about the presence of CEPACS in the continent which gave the impression that some people did not play their role as they were supposed to,” the Secretary General for SECAM, Fr. Rafael Simbine Junior shared with AMECEA Online in an interview Wednesday, August 16, on the sidelines of the African delegates seminar on synodality held in Nairobi.
He advised on the need to do more about CEPACS and make it known to the people of Africa by organizing meetings with the regional bodies to national conferences. In this regard Fr. Simbine appreciated the President of CEPACS Bishop Emmanuel Adetoyese Badejo of Oyo diocese, Nigeria who doubles as a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication for being active in fulfilling his role and making CEPACS to move on.
CEPACS was founded in 1973 by SECAM with the aim to animate, encourage and coordinate the media activities of the Catholic Church in Africa in collaboration with regional and national offices and mandated to promote the use of modern means of mass communications as tools of evangelization in the continent.
During the Wednesday interview, Fr. Simbine a Mozambican cleric of Xai-Xai Diocese underscored that CEPACS which is an initiative of SECAM, “Is to create unity and encourage togetherness among communication agencies in the continent for the good of the Church in Africa and the Islands.”
Even though CEPACS has experienced challenges like any other department or organization, the Secretary General of SECAM said, it has had its achievements including collaboration with SIGNIS in establishment of media agencies to help spread the good news of the Gospel. SIGNIS which is a Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communication media has the mandate to engage with media professionals and support Catholic Communicators to transform our cultures in the light of the Gospel.
Fr. Simbine further requested for more prayers for CEPACS as the Church in Africa prepares for this anniversary scheduled to take place in Lagos, Nigeria so it can be a moment of renewal for CEPACS.
Emphasizing on the significance of increasing visibility of CEPACS in the region, Fr. Andrew Kaufa the communication coordinator for the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) noted that revitalization of CEPACS in the upcoming meeting, “is one of the fruits of synodality in Africa.”
He narrates that since the special synod for Africa in 1995, and apart from the meeting of 2003 when CEPACS statutes were reviewed, there has been no serious collaboration of communicators across the continent until the gathering that was held in Addis Ababa in the month of March 2023, for the continental synodal celebration in Africa.
“There is need to sustain the collaboration at continental level,” Fr. Kaufa said and explained further, “Communicators in Africa can begin to journey together in the spirit of synod and after the anniversary of CEPACS in Lagos, we expect more activities that will strengthen synodality and journeying together of communicators in Africa.”
