DJIBOUTI & SOMALIA: Missionary Spirit is the Drive in Affiliate Countries of AMECEA: Bishop Bertin’s Experience

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA

After decades of service in the Horn of Africa region specifically in Djibouti and Somalia, the two affiliate countries of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA), Bishop Giorgio Bertin whose resignation was accepted by the Holy Father Saturday, January 13, confirms that Missionary Spirit is all that is needed to serve in fragile countries.

Sharing his experience with AMECEA Online after his resignation, the Italian-born Prelate said, “In this part of the Horn of Africa, (where) I have been for about 48 years, I take with me the enthusiasm for the mission, despite all the difficulties.”

Even though Christianity is a minority religion with Christians less than 1% of the total population in both Djibouti and Somalia, Bishop Bertin underscored that “mission in Muslim countries is done through the witness of our lives, especially in the humanitarian fields and in the field of education (and) conversion is the work of God.”

“Perhaps I have not made many baptisms, but I am sure that my presence and that of the many missionaries I have lived with have touched the hearts of so many people we have met,” the Bishops explained in the Wednesday, January 17, interview adding that. “In these lands, we preach more by example and action than by words.”

Sharing some of his achievements as the Shepherd for Djibouti a country which is directly under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and also Somalia, Bishop Bertin disclosed beginning an awareness activity in 1992, “to make the world aware of ‘The Somali Human Disaster’.

“In fact, on 23 October 1992, I visited the USA in New York, Washington, and Kansas City and insisted on the need for political and military intervention by the international community to save Somalia and its people, because humanitarian aid alone was not enough,” the Bishop narrated and continued, “The result was the start of ‘Operation Restore Hope,’ and also the “reopening of our mission in Hargheisa in 2016 where the priests still serve to date.”

The member of the Order of Friars Minor (OFM) who appreciated evangelization through the media engaged in strengthening the faith of Christians through a radio program in Somali, a platform which he says “still broadcasts every Sunday on Vatican Radio.”

“The program includes a 12-minute broadcast in which reflections are made based on the social teaching of the Church,” he narrated.

Expounding more on the achievements realized, Franciscan Prelate the disclosed opening of the first school for disabled children in Djibouti in 2010 which paved the way for the creation of the National Agency for Handicapped Persons in Djibouti.

He also opened the first English school in Djibouti in 2011, an avenue which gave children from Djibouti itself including those from India, Ethiopia, and other nationalities the opportunity to have education “tailored to the needs of this little country surrounded by countries whose commercial language is English rather than French.”

Even though the Italian Prelate finds fulfillment in the achievements he realized during his pastoral ministry in Africa, his greatest challenges were in Somalia when he was to be in-charge of the Diocese of Mogadishu after the murder of Bishop Salvatore Colombo in 1989 and later in 1990 after the civil war that destroyed the physical presence of the Church in the country and “I was left alone and had to take refuge in Nairobi.”

According to Bishop Bertin who plans to return to Italy and serve in one of the friaries near Milan, during his stay in Kenya, he joined the team that “translated the Gospel into Somali with appropriate notes addressed to Somalis.”

Bishop Bertin advised the new Bishop Jamal Boulos Sleiman Daibes who has been appointed to succeed him, to have a missionary spirit.”

He said addressing the new Bishop who is the former Auxiliary Bishop of Jerusalem “Be patient, prudent, and persevere in this context which is very different from the Holy Land: these lands are also to be sowed with the seeds of the gospel.”