{"id":20816,"date":"2024-09-06T16:10:28","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T16:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=20816"},"modified":"2024-09-06T16:10:28","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T16:10:28","slug":"kenya-pope-francis-urges-bishops-from-kenya-to-be-close-to-their-flock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2024\/09\/06\/kenya-pope-francis-urges-bishops-from-kenya-to-be-close-to-their-flock\/","title":{"rendered":"KENYA: Pope Francis Urges Bishops from Kenya to Be Close to Their Flock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA <\/em><\/p>\n

At the end of their 10-day Ad Limina visit in Rome, Pope Francis has called upon members of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) to stay connected to their congregants as they offer guidance and spiritual leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Holy Father encouraged the bishops to be close to their flock, so that the \u201cpeople can touch their bishops,\u201d the Chairman of the KCCB Archbishop Maurice Muhatia Makumba said in an interview Thursday, September 5, after coming back from Rome.<\/p>\n

He stressed that the Holy Father\u2019s message is consistent with his previous communications that \u201ca Bishop should know the smell of his sheep and conversely, the people should also know the smell of their shepherd.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clarion call of Pope Francis for prelates and clerics to be \u201cShepherds with the smell of the sheep,\u201d is an analogy he used in his homily at the Chrism Mass nearly a fortnight after his election as the Head of the Catholic Church in 2013.<\/p>\n

In a video<\/a> clip shared Sunday September 1, while at St. Peter\u2019s Square next to Basilica in Rome, Archbishop Muhatia of Kisumu Archdiocese addressed the Kenyan Catholic community living in Rome saying, \u201cWe have had a very fruitful encounter in Rome, a beautiful encounter with the Holy Father and a beautiful encounter with the Cardinals that look after the various offices that help the Holy Father in doing his pastoral work.\u201d<\/p>\n

He expressed further, \u201cAs the bishops of Kenya we have had a very beautiful experience representing our country, representing respective Dioceses in Kenya. We go back home re-energized after encountering the successor of St. Peter and expressing our unity and our communion with the Holy Father and with the universal Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the conference of Bishops, the Kenyan Prelate said they are only complete together with the successor of St. Peter who is the Holy Father and in this case Pope Francis.<\/p>\n

He delivered the Holy Father\u2019s message to Kenyans saying, \u201cThe Pope in a very special way sends his Apostolic blessings to all the people, all the Christian faithful in Kenya.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Archbishop in the Thursday interview, Ad limina visit was a source of an enriching spiritual experience, reminding the bishops their responsibility and the need to always feel with the Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to build our communities around Jesus Christ and on the firm foundations laid by the Apostles,\u201d he underscored and expounded further, \u201cAll the Christian faithful need to be helped to feel part of the community of faith and to embrace even more enthusiastically their ownership of the Church and the mission of evangelization.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stressed the message shared<\/a> with media practitioners in August before the bishops travel to Rome for the Ad Limina visit about the growth of the Church in Kenya saying, \u201cThe Kenyan Catholic Christians have a reason to thank God for the vibrant growth of the Church and we need to listen attentively to what the Spirit is inviting us to do, especially with the abundance of vocations to Religious life and the Sacred Priesthood.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThe Lord is inviting us to greater responsibility in evangelization\u201d.<\/p>\n

During their 10-day visit, the Kenya\u2019s Catholic Bishops celebrated Mass together with the Kenyan Community in Rome including the priests, religious, and lay faithful, at St. Paul\u2019s Basilica Outside the Walls, they prayed at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of Mary Major and at St. Peter\u2019s Basilica and also at the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA At the end of their 10-day Ad Limina visit in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-kenya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20817,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20816\/revisions\/20817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}