{"id":21697,"date":"2025-01-31T18:02:29","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T18:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=21697"},"modified":"2025-01-31T18:03:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T18:03:38","slug":"secam-president-meets-malawi-bishops-to-discuss-the-churchs-role-in-addressing-spiritual-and-social-challenges-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2025\/01\/31\/secam-president-meets-malawi-bishops-to-discuss-the-churchs-role-in-addressing-spiritual-and-social-challenges-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"SECAM: President Meets Malawi Bishops to Discuss the Church\u2019s Role In Addressing Spiritual and Social Challenges in Africa."},"content":{"rendered":"

Brenard Mwanza <\/em><\/p>\n

President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) His Eminence Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu said the Catholic Church in Africa requires a new approach to leadership and engagement, extending beyond local boundaries to address broader social issues affecting the continent.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Ambongo who is also the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, highlighted the interconnections between spiritual guidance and social responsibilities, noting that bishops must engage with political leaders to address the challenges faced by populations in Africa.<\/p>\n

He made the remarks in an interview with the Catholic journalists at the end of his visit to Malawi where he, among other things, interacted with the bishops on the sidelines of their first annual plenary meeting held from January 27-31, 2025 at the Catholic Secretariat in the Capital Lilongwe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we have to build the Catholic Church in Africa is new for me. If we are here in Malawi, the Bishop of Malawi has to take care not only of the church in Malawi, but of the church in Africa. We have this core responsibility for the church,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

He further shared that he personally advocates for meetings with politicians to facilitate change, acknowledging the difficult situations affecting regional stability which in the end affects the church and its activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to talk to them. In many countries I go, if possible, I meet the president to talk with them and the politicians because they are the first responsible for the people,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Congolese Prelate highlighted how Pope Francis sees the church in Africa, recognizing the significant growth it is experiencing, with Catholics making up a notable percentage of the population.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe church is growing in Africa. Now we can speak about…18% of the African population are Catholics and this is a great mark, yeah. So even the ecclesiastic studies, they confirm that in the globe of our church, it is in Africa that the Catholic Church is growing more. The future of the Church is in Africa,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

President of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, His Grace the Most Reverend George Desmond Tambala, said the Cardinal\u2019s visit from January 28-30, 2025 would inspire the collaboration in missionary work while tackling both spiritual and social challenges, following the recent synod on synodality.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things he has encouraged us to do is now explore the possibility of even visiting each other within Africa. It’s something that we have not done up to now, so that has been more in the scope,\u201d said Archbishop Tambala.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe have explored the different levels of collaboration in SECAM,\u201d he added, \u201c\u2026. there are different levels of collaboration, whether it is in the area of evangelization, area of planting the different missionary works in the region, area of formation of priests, area of social work of the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinal Ambongo further applauded the good work that the church in Malawi is doing in meeting the social and spiritual needs of the people both Catholics and non-Catholics by, among other things, providing education and health services.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu is also a member of the Council of Cardinals, also known as the C9 which is a group of cardinals who advise Pope Francis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brenard Mwanza President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) His…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-malawi","category-secam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21697","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=21697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21700,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21697\/revisions\/21700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}