THE CATHOLICS AND VATICAN II

The Popes and Africa

The strength of the Roman Catholic Church had always been its solid foundations, its tradition, language, law and liturgy. Then the good Pope Johannes XXIII called the Church to an aggiornamento, and the Church was hit by the greatest spiritual change and challenge, yes, revolution, of the latter part of the twentieth century: Vatican II. To a degree which cannot be fathomed, at least not by a Protestant observer, the local dioceses of the Church in Africa, under African bishops, realized that they were now placed in a completely new situation, standing at the door to the future.

Pope Pius XII showed the way. His role cannot be referred to without mentioning his initiative in 1957, the encyclical Fidei Donum. In his Easter message of 1957 the Pope suggested that bishops in the ‘First World’ send some of their priests to Africa for a certain period. In fact these priests worked on average nine years in Africa, their average age being around fifty years old. In 1982 the following numbers were involved in the Fidei Donum programme: in North Africa thirty-seven, in Black Africa 124, and on Madagascar fourteen, devoted to the following tasks: pastoral service; Catholic Action; schools; and theological seminaries with catechetical training. Examples are known of priests who have served for over thirty years in this capacity, far beyond the retirement age.