At 11:30 this morning, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the Prelates from the Episcopal Conference of the Congo who are in rome for their visit ad limina Apostolorum.
Dear brothers in the episcopate,
It is a great joy for me to welcome you on the occasion of your visit ad limina Apostolorum, which allows you to freshen your connections with the Apostolic See and with the Bishops throughout the world, strengthening also the collegiality that exists between us. My joy is even greater since through you, I greet young and dynamic Christian communities who seek to be rooted in the love of the Lord. By receiving you, I also have a special thought for them, and for your priests, your men and women religious, your catechists and all the other pastoral agents who are working for the advancement of the Kingdom of God in the Congo. This is also an opportunity for you to be comforted in serving them, a source of refreshment that you seek during this pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, who witnessed to their faith in Christ to the point of the supreme sacrifice of martyrdom. I am moved by your attachment to the Successor of Peter, expressed in your name by His Excellency, Daniel Mizonazo, President of your Conference. In thanking him most sincerely as well as all of you, I should like to demonstrate my encouragement in your apostolic work.
The recent creation of three new dioceses bears witness to the vitality of the Catholic Church in your country, and to the zeal with which her pastors bear witness to the work of evangelization. This is a reason for great satisfaction, which translates into increased efforts to respond better and better to the needs of the people of God and to the expectations of numerous people to whom the gospel of Jesus Christ has not yet been proclaimed.
It is good that in recent years, your Conference's reflections have focused on the mission of the laity in the Church and in society. I would like to recognize here their remarkable contribution to the work of evangelization. The importance of your pastoral leadership helps their spiritual and apostolic movements to rediscover and to affirm their vocation of bearing credible witness of the laity toward the saving truth of the gospel, to its power to purify and transform the human heart, and to its ability to build up the human family in unity, justice and peace (Speech for the meeting with those responsible for the apostolate of the laity, Korea, August 16, 2014). The laity needs to be accompanied and taught how to bear witness to the gospel in socio-political arenas, which constitute their specific field of apostolate (cf Apostolicam actuositatem, 4, 7). Family ministry is an integral part of this accompaniment. Hesitancy on the part of the faithful toward Christian marriage reveals the necessity for a deeper evangelization which implies not only inculturation in the faith but also the evangelization of local traditions and cultures (cf Africae munus, 36-38). To this end, I wish to thank you for the contribution that your dioceses have provided to the Synod of Bishops on the family. You will be able to profit from their work in order to better adapt your family ministry to local realities.
Dear brothers in the episcopacy, in these domains and in many others, priests are your first collaborators. As a result, their living conditions and their holiness should never cease to be at the heart of your preoccupations and your attention (cf Presbyterorum Ordinis, 7). In particular, ongoing formation is invaluable to them, so that they may better serve the people of God and spiritually accompany them in needed ways, especially through dignified liturgical celebrations and homilies that feed the faith of the faithful. In this regard, I invite you to continue watching over the conditions for sending priests from your dioceses for further studies and to support them during the time they spend outside of your dioceses in order to ensure their return when necessary, so that the good of the Church might always be maintained.
I give thanks to God for the many priestly and religious vocations that flourish in your dioceses. They bear witness to your apostolic zeal, blessed by the Lord, for it is He, the Master of the harvest who calls and sends workers into the harvest (cf Mt 9:38). This will create more obligations for you, the pastors to whom these vocations are confided, so that through personalized listening, you may accompany those who feel called to serve the Lord in the vineyard, according to various charisms. The immense pastoral need of the local Church itself necessitates a rigorous discernment, so that the People of God might count on zealous pastors who are edified by their life witness, especially in celibacy and the spirit of evangelical poverty. Furthermore, nothing should be neglected in order that all the priests, the catechists, the families, the youth, prayer groups and other groups too, are more aware of their contribution to the accompaniment and the formation of candidates for the priesthood and in doing their part.
During this Year of Consecrated Life, I want to highlight in a particular way the commitment of religious men and women in service to the people of the Congo, to whom they generously and devotedly provide assistance both spiritual and material, in baring witness to the chaste, poor and obedient Christ. If harmonious collaboration between you Bishops and the Consecrated persons, which is necessary at all levels, promotes the proclamation of the Gospel, your affectionate closeness will surely assure them and permit them to contribute even more to the growth of the local Church in the variety of their charisms.
Dear brothers in the Episcopacy, certain dioceses are experiencing great difficulties as a result of insufficient locally available material and financial resources. I measure the scale of the problems and the concerns related to such a situation based on the heart of its pastor. This is why I encourage you to encourage and to resolutely engage your dioceses along the path of autonomy, training them to increasingly take charge and to be in solidarity with other particular Churches in your country, following the beautiful tradition established by the first Christian communities (cf Rom 15:25-28). In this respect, you should continue to be watchful that financial aid which is granted to your particular Churches in order to support them in their specific missions, neither limit your pastoral liberty nor compromise the Church's freedom, which should always be free to proclaim the gospel with credibility.
As to the matters of assistance and solidarity between particular Churches, these should translate equally in the promotion of a missionary spirit first within Africa. I willingly remind you of the solemn call that was issued by my predecessor, Blessed Paul VI in Kampala: You, Africans, are from this point onward, your own missionaries! (Homily for the Eucharistic celebration at the conclusion of the Symposium of the Bishops of Africa, July 31, 1969).
Ecclesial communion should also be concretely demonstrated in the exercise of the prophetic dimension of your pastoral charge. In effect, it is important that you can, with one voice, speak the strong words inspired by the gospel in order to direct and clarify your compatriots in every aspect of communal life, in the difficult moments for your Nation or when circumstances necessitate them. In this sense, your efforts toward ever-growing cooperation should continue because unity in diversity is both one of the characteristics and one of the requirements of the Church, the Body of Christ. Not only will this cohesion always allow you to defend the common good and the well-being of the Church in every instance, but it will also encourage your efforts to face together the numerous pastoral challenges, not the least of which is the proliferation of sects.
In-depth evangelization is another great challenge. However, it requires that special attention be paid to the concrete life conditions common to your people, that is to say definitively committed to the promotion of the human person. Here too, the commitment of the Catholic Church in the Congo is important: both in the domains of education, health, assistance in various categories of persons in need, including refugees from neighbouring countries, your diocesan communities contribute in significant ways. With the generosity and devotion of the good Samaritan, they give of themselves freely, for the sake of their brothers and sisters. As pastors, you will continue to ensure that social ministry is practiced more and more in the spirit of the Gospel and better still be perceived as a work of evangelization, and not as an action carried out by a Non-governmental Organization.
In this regard, in certain sectors of society, the wounds brought on by the serious crises which have affected the Congo at the end of the 1990s left some deep scars which sometimes have not yet been completely healed. In this domain in particular, the Church, strengthened by the gospel of Jesus, has received the mission of reconciling hearts, of bringing together divided communities and of building a new fraternity rooted in forgiveness and solidarity. You pastors, continue to be models and prophets of these truths!
Recently, in the Diocese of Dolisie, in Louvakou, a Shrine dedicated to Divine Mercy was opened. It is becoming a place of pilgrimage, of retreats and of spiritual encounters. I rejoice over this news and I hope that this Shrine will truly become a place where the people of God will come to strengthen their faith, especially on the occasion of the upcoming Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy and other pastoral initiatives that you will undertake.
Finally, renewing my fraternal and prayerful affection, I reiterate my encouragement to your priests, your religious men and women, your consecrated lay people, your catechists and all the faithful of the Church who are pilgrims in that beautiful and dear land of the Congo. Invoking Divine Mercy upon you and upon your country, I willingly impart to you, an to all your diocesan communities, my Apostolic Blessing.
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
to Bishops of the Congo
Dear brothers in the episcopate,
It is a great joy for me to welcome you on the occasion of your visit ad limina Apostolorum, which allows you to freshen your connections with the Apostolic See and with the Bishops throughout the world, strengthening also the collegiality that exists between us. My joy is even greater since through you, I greet young and dynamic Christian communities who seek to be rooted in the love of the Lord. By receiving you, I also have a special thought for them, and for your priests, your men and women religious, your catechists and all the other pastoral agents who are working for the advancement of the Kingdom of God in the Congo. This is also an opportunity for you to be comforted in serving them, a source of refreshment that you seek during this pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, who witnessed to their faith in Christ to the point of the supreme sacrifice of martyrdom. I am moved by your attachment to the Successor of Peter, expressed in your name by His Excellency, Daniel Mizonazo, President of your Conference. In thanking him most sincerely as well as all of you, I should like to demonstrate my encouragement in your apostolic work.
The recent creation of three new dioceses bears witness to the vitality of the Catholic Church in your country, and to the zeal with which her pastors bear witness to the work of evangelization. This is a reason for great satisfaction, which translates into increased efforts to respond better and better to the needs of the people of God and to the expectations of numerous people to whom the gospel of Jesus Christ has not yet been proclaimed.
It is good that in recent years, your Conference's reflections have focused on the mission of the laity in the Church and in society. I would like to recognize here their remarkable contribution to the work of evangelization. The importance of your pastoral leadership helps their spiritual and apostolic movements to rediscover and to affirm their vocation of bearing credible witness of the laity toward the saving truth of the gospel, to its power to purify and transform the human heart, and to its ability to build up the human family in unity, justice and peace (Speech for the meeting with those responsible for the apostolate of the laity, Korea, August 16, 2014). The laity needs to be accompanied and taught how to bear witness to the gospel in socio-political arenas, which constitute their specific field of apostolate (cf Apostolicam actuositatem, 4, 7). Family ministry is an integral part of this accompaniment. Hesitancy on the part of the faithful toward Christian marriage reveals the necessity for a deeper evangelization which implies not only inculturation in the faith but also the evangelization of local traditions and cultures (cf Africae munus, 36-38). To this end, I wish to thank you for the contribution that your dioceses have provided to the Synod of Bishops on the family. You will be able to profit from their work in order to better adapt your family ministry to local realities.
Dear brothers in the episcopacy, in these domains and in many others, priests are your first collaborators. As a result, their living conditions and their holiness should never cease to be at the heart of your preoccupations and your attention (cf Presbyterorum Ordinis, 7). In particular, ongoing formation is invaluable to them, so that they may better serve the people of God and spiritually accompany them in needed ways, especially through dignified liturgical celebrations and homilies that feed the faith of the faithful. In this regard, I invite you to continue watching over the conditions for sending priests from your dioceses for further studies and to support them during the time they spend outside of your dioceses in order to ensure their return when necessary, so that the good of the Church might always be maintained.
I give thanks to God for the many priestly and religious vocations that flourish in your dioceses. They bear witness to your apostolic zeal, blessed by the Lord, for it is He, the Master of the harvest who calls and sends workers into the harvest (cf Mt 9:38). This will create more obligations for you, the pastors to whom these vocations are confided, so that through personalized listening, you may accompany those who feel called to serve the Lord in the vineyard, according to various charisms. The immense pastoral need of the local Church itself necessitates a rigorous discernment, so that the People of God might count on zealous pastors who are edified by their life witness, especially in celibacy and the spirit of evangelical poverty. Furthermore, nothing should be neglected in order that all the priests, the catechists, the families, the youth, prayer groups and other groups too, are more aware of their contribution to the accompaniment and the formation of candidates for the priesthood and in doing their part.
During this Year of Consecrated Life, I want to highlight in a particular way the commitment of religious men and women in service to the people of the Congo, to whom they generously and devotedly provide assistance both spiritual and material, in baring witness to the chaste, poor and obedient Christ. If harmonious collaboration between you Bishops and the Consecrated persons, which is necessary at all levels, promotes the proclamation of the Gospel, your affectionate closeness will surely assure them and permit them to contribute even more to the growth of the local Church in the variety of their charisms.
Dear brothers in the Episcopacy, certain dioceses are experiencing great difficulties as a result of insufficient locally available material and financial resources. I measure the scale of the problems and the concerns related to such a situation based on the heart of its pastor. This is why I encourage you to encourage and to resolutely engage your dioceses along the path of autonomy, training them to increasingly take charge and to be in solidarity with other particular Churches in your country, following the beautiful tradition established by the first Christian communities (cf Rom 15:25-28). In this respect, you should continue to be watchful that financial aid which is granted to your particular Churches in order to support them in their specific missions, neither limit your pastoral liberty nor compromise the Church's freedom, which should always be free to proclaim the gospel with credibility.
As to the matters of assistance and solidarity between particular Churches, these should translate equally in the promotion of a missionary spirit first within Africa. I willingly remind you of the solemn call that was issued by my predecessor, Blessed Paul VI in Kampala: You, Africans, are from this point onward, your own missionaries! (Homily for the Eucharistic celebration at the conclusion of the Symposium of the Bishops of Africa, July 31, 1969).
Ecclesial communion should also be concretely demonstrated in the exercise of the prophetic dimension of your pastoral charge. In effect, it is important that you can, with one voice, speak the strong words inspired by the gospel in order to direct and clarify your compatriots in every aspect of communal life, in the difficult moments for your Nation or when circumstances necessitate them. In this sense, your efforts toward ever-growing cooperation should continue because unity in diversity is both one of the characteristics and one of the requirements of the Church, the Body of Christ. Not only will this cohesion always allow you to defend the common good and the well-being of the Church in every instance, but it will also encourage your efforts to face together the numerous pastoral challenges, not the least of which is the proliferation of sects.
In-depth evangelization is another great challenge. However, it requires that special attention be paid to the concrete life conditions common to your people, that is to say definitively committed to the promotion of the human person. Here too, the commitment of the Catholic Church in the Congo is important: both in the domains of education, health, assistance in various categories of persons in need, including refugees from neighbouring countries, your diocesan communities contribute in significant ways. With the generosity and devotion of the good Samaritan, they give of themselves freely, for the sake of their brothers and sisters. As pastors, you will continue to ensure that social ministry is practiced more and more in the spirit of the Gospel and better still be perceived as a work of evangelization, and not as an action carried out by a Non-governmental Organization.
In this regard, in certain sectors of society, the wounds brought on by the serious crises which have affected the Congo at the end of the 1990s left some deep scars which sometimes have not yet been completely healed. In this domain in particular, the Church, strengthened by the gospel of Jesus, has received the mission of reconciling hearts, of bringing together divided communities and of building a new fraternity rooted in forgiveness and solidarity. You pastors, continue to be models and prophets of these truths!
Recently, in the Diocese of Dolisie, in Louvakou, a Shrine dedicated to Divine Mercy was opened. It is becoming a place of pilgrimage, of retreats and of spiritual encounters. I rejoice over this news and I hope that this Shrine will truly become a place where the people of God will come to strengthen their faith, especially on the occasion of the upcoming Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy and other pastoral initiatives that you will undertake.
Finally, renewing my fraternal and prayerful affection, I reiterate my encouragement to your priests, your religious men and women, your consecrated lay people, your catechists and all the faithful of the Church who are pilgrims in that beautiful and dear land of the Congo. Invoking Divine Mercy upon you and upon your country, I willingly impart to you, an to all your diocesan communities, my Apostolic Blessing.
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