New Head Of The Catholic Church In Africa To Be Elected

July 29, 2022240 views0

New Head Of The Catholic Church In Africa To Be Elected

2022-07-29T13:05:22+01:00

By Church News

The Symposium of Episcopal of Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), the association of Catholic Bishops of Africa, Madagascar and the Islands will elect a new Head of the Catholic Church in Africa on the 30th of July to replace the outgoing Head, His Eminence Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, from Burkina Faso.The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) was born out of the wish of African Bishops during the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) to establish a forum in which they could speak with one voice on matters about the Church in Africa.The establishment of SECAM is therefore the result of the Bishops’ resolve to build a continental structure to bring forth the African vision to the whole Church.Seeing the importance of such an Association for Africa, the Congregation for the Evangelisation of the Peoples invited the Presidents of the Regional Episcopal Conferences for consultations in 1968.Consequently, the first visit of a Pope to Africa, in modern times, was seen as a very opportune occasion for the launch of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. This was therefore done during the visit of His Holiness Pope Paul VI to Kampala (Uganda) in July 1969.Thereafter, it was agreed to establish the Headquarters / Secretariat of SECAM in Accra, Ghana. There are three official languages of SECAM, namely, English, French and Portuguese.SECAM aims at preserving, fostering and promoting communion, joint action and collaboration among all the Episcopal Conferences of the entire Africa and Madagascar, through the Regional Conferences, especially in the continuation of the primary apostolate of the first evangelization of those who have not yet received the message of Christ.It also aims at the in-depth evangelization of the African culture and its socio-political life and promotes the integral human development, Ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue in Africa.AlSO READ SECAM Plenary Gets Underway In Ghana