Bishops from Gabon at the Vatican

The Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience this morning the bishops from the Episcopal Conference of Gabon who are in Rome for their visit ad limina Apostolorum.

Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

presented to the bishops from Gabon

Dear brother bishops,

I am happy to welcome you on the occasion of your visit ad limina Apostolorum.  On this pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, you come to draw new energy from their martyrdom, founded on faith in Christ who died and rose again, in order to continue your mission as pastors with renewed vigour and in order to strengthen your bonds of communion with the Apostolic See, also strengthening the collegiality that exists between you and other bishops throughout the world.

In his address, spoken in your name, His Excellency, Mathieu Madega Lebouakehan, President of your Episcopal Conference mentioned a few important aspects of the life of the Church in Gabon.  I thank him sincerely as well a each of you for your sentiments of faithful union with the Successor of Peter and for your pastoral zeal.  During this jubilee year, remembering various events which have characterized the life of the Church in Gabon, most notably the 170th anniversary of its foundation, I wish to greet through you and to encourage the priests, the religious men and women, other pastoral workers who are working with you and all the faithful of your dioceses, with whom I am united in offering prayers of thanksgiving.

Dear brother bishops, the valiant missionaries who proclaimed the gospel in your land, in heroic conditions, like the first Gabonese Christians who welcomed the Good News of salvation with generous hearts and who often bore witness in the midst of many adversities, are the pioneers of your local Church.  Their memory, their zeal and their evangelical witness should always inspire your pastoral action and be for the entire Church in Gabon the source of a renewed commitment to the proclamation of the gospel, a message of peace, of joy, of salvation that frees mankind from the forces of evil in order to lead us toward the Kingdom of God.

The accomplishment of the ministry that has been confided to you in each of your dioceses requires you to live in authentic fraternity within your Episcopal Conference: That they may be one, so that the world may believe that you have sent me (Jn 17:21).  This commitment to unity and to communion was bequeathed to us by Jesus himself, as a necessity in order that the Word might be heard and welcomed and therefore that the Church might grow.  Fraternal collaboration should permit better response to the needs and the challenges facing the Church and watchfulness in a spirit of collegiality for the common good of all.  From this perspective, you recently organized a day of prayer for your country.  Thus the Church bears witness to the fact that she shares the preoccupations of all Gabonese and concern that the Christian message, far from detracting men and women from building a more just and more fraternal world, becomes for them instead a more pressing necessity (Gaudium et spes, 34).  The Centre for studies for social doctrine and inter-religious dialogue, begun in 2011 at Libreville, also reveals your concern for evangelizing the Moors and the socio-political realities existing in your country.

Dear brother bishops, unity in the presbyterate, gathered around their Bishop is an example that shows the faithful the sense of the Church as the family of God.  This example should translate most notably into real concern for immunization against the pernicious danger of discriminatory tribal and ethnic considerations which are the negation of the gospel.  This spirit of communion is expressed in a particular way through fraternal attention that you afford to life and to the mission of your priests, through constant dialogue, without hesitating to sanction the situations which are necessary in justice and in charity.  I want to highlight here how important it is for a priest to have a prayer life, for it is in Christ that the priestly life must be united.  Thus, the priest remains fully available for God and for his brothers, and he puts himself generously at the service of the proclamation of the Word and of the dignified celebration of the sacraments.  Solid on-going formation contributes to the enlivening of apostolic dynamism in order to meet men and women in their culture and language.  In this way, particular care must be paid to the preparation of the homily and catechesis.  The homily is the cornerstone to evaluate the proximity and the capability that a pastor has for meeting his people (Evangelii gaudium, 135).
  

Candidates for the priesthood also deserve a privileged place in your pastoral hearts: these young men who, with an enthusiasm that is at times strewn with doubt, want to consecrate their lives to the Lord in the priesthood; they need to feel concern and encouragement from their bishop, synonymous with effective accompaniment in the indispensable and complex process of discernment of vocations.  This discernment and the formation of seminarians should be rooted first on the gospel and then in true cultural values of their country, on the sense of honesty, responsibility and the spoken word (cf Ecclesia in Africa, 95).

Religious men and women, who since the foundation of the Church in Gabon have demonstrated extraordinary apostolic zeal in service to the gospel, also have a right to the privileged attention characterized by your affection.  During this Year of Consecrated Life, I repeat here in a particular way, the invitation that I offered to all my brothers in the Episcopate: May this Year be an occasion to cordially and joyfully welcome consecrated life as a spiritual focus which is good for the entire Body of Christ and not only for religious families (Apostolic Letter to Consecrated Persons on the occasion of the Year of Consecrated Life, 5).  This welcome is demonstrated through a constructive dialogue and ongoing collaboration at all levels with them, as well as for spiritual closeness and through the promotion of various charisms in your dioceses.

I also encourage you to continue your concern for the laity and their Christian vocation by inviting them to develop their charisms in order to use them in service to the Church and to society.  The Church is by nature entirely missionary.  We must recognize that an important contribution to the vitality of our Churches is found in the zeal of many of the laity who are committed to the life of the community at various levels.  Each Christian community, each Christian is therefore called to have the courage to reach out toward men and women who are in need of the light of the gospel, in their daily lives.  Thus the human and Christian formation of the laity is an important means for contributing to the work of evangelization and of personal development, while having a particular concern for always going out toward the peripheries of society (cf Evangelii gaudium, 20).  You should also be attentive to present to young people the true face of Christ, their friend and guide, so that they might find in him a firm guide to help them resist ideologies and sects as well as illusions of a false modernity and a mirage of material riches.

In this regard, prestige enjoyed by Catholic institutes of education in your country should preserve a formation which is ever-more inspired by the spirit of the gospel.  The agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Gabon on the statute of Catholic Teaching, dated 2001, offers the local Church a precious support for this work, favouring the promotion of every man (cf Populorum progressio, 14), with a preferential option for the poor.    I therefore encourage you to not hesitate to raise your voices in defence of the human person and the sacredness of life.  In this period of preparation for the next Synod of Bishops on the family, I invite you to pray and to ask others to pray for its success, toward better service for all families.

Dear brother bishops, at the end of this encounter, I want to assure you of my prayer, and to ask once more for your prayers and for the prayers of your diocesan communities.  With my affectionate encouragement which I extend especially to your priests, your religious men and women, your catechists and all your collaborators, through the intercession of Our Lady of Gabon, I impart to all of you my Apostolic blessing, imploring abundant divine graces upon you and upon the Church in your country.