By Sr. Henriette Anne, FSSA<\/p>\n
On the third day of the 20th Plenary of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), Dr. Frick Zur, the director of Misereor, a German Catholic Bishops Organization for Development cooperation shared with the delegates of SECAM that they are facing reductions in financial capacity due to government cuts in development aid and declining Church donations in Germany and urged for support of local fundraising in various Churches.<\/p>\n
Mr. Zur noted that even though Misereor is proactive in raising the concern with their partners, the organization reassured the delegates that \u201ceven with reduced financial means, Misereor will continue to cooperate with the Church and civil society in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Especially where our cooperation is not merely one of a financial nature, we will continue to cooperate well and, in a future-oriented way\u201d.<\/p>\n
Guided by the vision of its founder, Cardinal Frings, \u201cStanding with the Poor, appealing to the Conscience of the Powerful\u201d, the director of Misereor stressed that Misereor has served for over 60 years for a dignified life and it will continue to work with its partner organizations to raise awareness among those in power, contribute to changing global conditions and stand with the vulnerable and marginalized in line with the poor.<\/p>\n
Inspired by the work of Pope Francis, who advocated for the dignity of the poor and the marginalized, the director of Misereor, in his sharing, noted that the networking and dialogue of Pope Francis brought new reflections within the Church that should be a motivating factor to various Church actors like SECAM. CIDSE and Misereor to try new approaches to the challenges.<\/p>\n
Acknowledging that the choice of Rwanda, Kigali as the venue of the 20th<\/sup> SECAM Plenary assembly is symbolic, he reminded the participants that the Church must be ready to act as a mediator, to pave the way for healing and reconciliation, to see and document violations, and be a bridge builder.<\/p>\n Pointing out the many social, political, and economic situations of many countries, and many people fear that surviving and coexisting might become impossible on earth, Dr. Zur called upon the Church and civil society to join forces and promote holistic human development.<\/p>\n Using the Spirit of Ubuntu Philosophy, he stressed working together through recognizing all people with their equal dignity and rights, hearing the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor and marginalized, and finally to take a firm stand for sustainable peace and justice by building bridges.<\/p>\n \u201cThe least we as Church and civil society actors can do is to remain at the side of the poor and marginalized, to jointly decry injustices and to create room for dialogues to strengthen justice and peace, however difficult the situation,\u201d he said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Sr. Henriette Anne, FSSA On the third day of the 20th Plenary of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-secam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22871","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=22871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22878,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22871\/revisions\/22878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}