André Lebrou, R.I.P. Posted on 02/10/201902/10/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo Society of the Missionaries of AfricaFather Patrick Bataille, Provincial Delegate of the sector of France,informs you of the return to the Lord of FatherAndré Lebrou on Tuesday 1st of October 2019 at Pau-Billère (France)at the age of 92 years, of which 65 years of missionary life inMali and France.Let us pray for him and for his loved ones.Download here the announcement of Father André Lebrou’s death (more…)
Jean Cordesse, R.I.P. Posted on 01/10/201901/10/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo Society of the Missionaries of AfricaFather Patrick Bataille, Provincial Delegate of the sector of France,informs you of the return to the Lord of FatherJean Cordesse on 1st of October 2019 at Pau-Billère (France)at the age of 93 years, of which 67 years of missionary life inZambia and France.Let us pray for him and for his loved ones.Download here the announcement of Father Jean Cordesse (more…)
Talitha Kum General Assembly Posted on 01/10/201901/10/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo Talitha Kum General Assembly The General Assembly of TALITHA KUM began in Rome on Saturday, 21st of September 2019.Many guests came for the opening ceremony. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Talitha Kum, the Eucharistic celebration of thanksgiving took place in St. Peter’s Basilica and was presided over by H.E. Card. Peter Turkson.To mark the support of the Missionaries of Africa, Fathers Martin Grenier and Andreas Göpfert participated.We share the common commitment against human trafficking. We are concerned to promote collaboration and the exchange of information and to set up effective structures in the various African countries.National networks are already operational in several countries: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Tunisia,… while other networks are being created, for example in Tanzania.For more information, please visit Talitha Kum’s official page:https://www.talithakum.info/ The eucharistic celebration is presided by H.E. Cardinal Turkson and concelebrated by... Martin Grenier
World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees (6) Posted on 29/09/201920/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo World's Day of Migrants and Refugees (6)IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS… The 29th of September is World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees. An opportunity to change our hearts, our ways of thinking… and to enter into the logic of God. NOT JUST ABOUT THE MIGRANTS… IT’S ABOUT THE WHOLE PERSON AND ABOUT ALL PEOPLE. “The humanism that Catholic educational institutions are called to build is that which advocates a vision of society centred on the human person and his or her inalienable rights, on the values of justice and peace, on a correct relationship between individuals, society and the State, in the logic of solidarity and subsidiarity. It is a humanism capable of giving a soul to economic progress itself, so that it may be directed to the promotion of each individual and of the whole person.Rebuilding humanism also means orienting educational work toward the peripheries, the social peripheries and the existential peripheries. Through service, meeting and welcoming, opportunities are offered to the weakest and most vulnerable. In this way we grow together and we mature, understanding the needs of others.”Pope FrancisThe Church has been celebrating World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees ever since 1914. It is always an opportunity for her to express concern for the most vulnerable people, who have to move for one reason or another; it is also an opportunity to pray for the challenges of migration and to raise awareness of the opportunities it offers.For 2019, Pope Francis has chosen the theme “It is not only about migrants” to help remove our blinders and to ensure that no one is excluded from society, whether they are long-term residents or newcomers.Download here the full kit for Pastoral use.Official websiteIT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS
World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees (5) Posted on 27/09/201920/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo World's Day of Migrants and Refugees (5)IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS… The 29th of September is World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees. An opportunity to change our hearts, our ways of thinking… and to enter into the logic of God. NOT JUST ABOUT THE MIGRANTS… IT’S ABOUT PUTTING THE LAST AND LEAST IN FIRST PLACE. “On this sixth anniversary of the visit to Lampedusa, my thoughts go out to those “least ones” who daily cry out to the Lord, asking to be freed from the evils that afflict them. These least ones are abandoned and cheated into dying in the desert; these least ones are tortured, abused and violated in detention camps; these least ones face the waves of an unforgiving sea; these least ones are left in reception camps too long for them to be called temporary.In the spirit of the Beatitudes we are called to comfort them in their affliction and offer them mercy; to sate their hunger and thirst for justice; to let them experience God’s caring fatherliness; to show them the way to the Kingdom of Heaven. They are persons; these are not mere social or migrant issues! This is not just about migrants.”Pope FrancisThe Church has been celebrating World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees ever since 1914. It is always an opportunity for her to express concern for the most vulnerable people, who have to move for one reason or another; it is also an opportunity to pray for the challenges of migration and to raise awareness of the opportunities it offers.For 2019, Pope Francis has chosen the theme “It is not only about migrants” to help remove our blinders and to ensure that no one is excluded from society, whether they are long-term residents or newcomers.Download here the full kit for Pastoral use.Official websiteIT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS
World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees (4) Posted on 25/09/201920/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo World's Day of Migrants and Refugees (4)IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS… The 29th of September is World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees. An opportunity to change our hearts, our ways of thinking… and to enter into the logic of God. NOT JUST ABOUT THE MIGRANTS… IT’S ALSO ABOUT NOT EXCLUDING ANYONE. “Today’s world is increasingly becoming more elitist and cruel towards the excluded. Developing countries continue to be drained of their best natural and human resources for the benefit of a few privileged markets. Wars only affect some regions of the world, yet weapons of war are produced and sold in other regions which then refuse to accept the refugees produced by these conflicts, are unwilling to take them in.Those who pay the price are always the little ones, the poor, the most vulnerable, who are prevented from sitting at the table and are left with the “crumbs” of the banquet.The Church which “goes forth” can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast whom we ourselves as a society are excluding. Real development is fruitful and inclusive, oriented towards the future.”Pope FrancisThe Church has been celebrating World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees ever since 1914. It is always an opportunity for her to express concern for the most vulnerable people, who have to move for one reason or another; it is also an opportunity to pray for the challenges of migration and to raise awareness of the opportunities it offers.For 2019, Pope Francis has chosen the theme “It is not only about migrants” to help remove our blinders and to ensure that no one is excluded from society, whether they are long-term residents or newcomers.Download here the full kit for Pastoral use.Official websiteIT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS
Message from the GC to all confreres Posted on 24/09/201925/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo Message from the General Council on the occasion of the Extraordinary Missionary Month and our 150th Anniversary We, your brothers of the General Council, take the opportunity of addressing this message to you on the occasion of the extraordinary missionary month convoked by Pope Francis on the theme: “Baptized and sent: The Church of Christ in mission in the world”. This extraordinary missionary month celebrates the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s apostolic letter “Maximum Illud”, written in its time to awaken awareness and the importance of the Church’s missionary activity with special emphasis on mission ‘ad gentes’. Coincidentally this comes at the same time with the celebration of our 150,h Jubilee year which is drawing to a close. The coming together of these two events enables us as a Society to pause and reflect in order to find the ways and means to keep alive the flame of our missionary ardour and to renew our missionary momentum and dynamism. This is the approach to which Cardinal Filoni invited us when, during his homily on the occasion of the opening of the Jubilee Year in Rome, he put to us the following question: “What does it mean to celebrate the 150th anniversary of a religious family, if not to reflect fundamentally and understand why it was created and what role it still has today? » Download the letter of the General Council
World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees (3) Posted on 23/09/201920/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo World's Day of Migrants and Refugees (3)IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS… The 29th of September is World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees. An opportunity to change our hearts, our ways of thinking… and to enter into the logic of God. NOT JUST ABOUT THE MIGRANTS… IT’S ALSO ABOUT OUR HUMANITY. “Slavery is not something from other times. This practice has deep roots and it continues today in many forms: they include human trafficking, debt bondage, exploitation of children, sexual exploitation and forced domestic work. No one can wash their hands of these tragic realities without being, in some way, an accomplice in this crime against humanity.The first thing we must do is to create greater awareness of the subject, to break through the veil of indifference that hangs over this segment of humanity who suffer, who continue to suffer.The second great task is to act on behalf of those who have been turned into slaves.All of us Christians are called to work together, in ever greater collaboration, to overcome all forms of inequality, every type of discrimination.”Pope FrancisThe Church has been celebrating World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees ever since 1914. It is always an opportunity for her to express concern for the most vulnerable people, who have to move for one reason or another; it is also an opportunity to pray for the challenges of migration and to raise awareness of the opportunities it offers.For 2019, Pope Francis has chosen the theme “It is not only about migrants” to help remove our blinders and to ensure that no one is excluded from society, whether they are long-term residents or newcomers.Download here the full kit for Pastoral use.Official websiteIT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS
World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees (2) Posted on 21/09/201920/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo World's Day of Migrants and Refugees (2)IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS… The 29th of September is World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees. An opportunity to change our hearts, our ways of thinking… and to enter into the logic of God. NOT JUST ABOUT THE MIGRANTS… IT’S ALSO ABOUT CHARITY. “Charity cannot be neutral, antiseptic, indifferent, lukewarm or impartial! Charity is infectious, it excites, it risks and it engages! For true charity is always unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous! It is also about the face we want to give to our society and about the value of each human life. Many positive steps have been taken in different areas, especially in the developed countries, yet we cannot forget that the progress of our peoples cannot be measured by technological or economic advances alone. It depends above all on our openness to being touched and moved by those who knock at our door. Their faces debunk and shatter all those false idols that can take over and enslave our lives, idols blind to the lives and sufferings of others, idols that promise an illusory and fleeting happiness. How arid and inhospitable a city becomes, once it loses the capacity for compassion! A heartless society… a barren mother. You are not the marginalized; you are at the centre of the heart of the Church.”Pope FrancisThe Church has been celebrating World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees ever since 1914. It is always an opportunity for her to express concern for the most vulnerable people, who have to move for one reason or another; it is also an opportunity to pray for the challenges of migration and to raise awareness of the opportunities it offers.For 2019, Pope Francis has chosen the theme “It is not only about migrants” to help remove our blinders and to ensure that no one is excluded from society, whether they are long-term residents or newcomers.Download here the full kit for Pastoral use.Official websiteIT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS
World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees (1) Posted on 19/09/201920/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo World's Day of Migrants and Refugees (1)IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS… The 29th of September is World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees. An opportunity to change our hearts, our ways of thinking… and to enter into the logic of God. NOT JUST ABOUT THE MIGRANTS… IT’S ALSO ABOUT OUR FEARS. Credit Photos : A Gichigi“The ugly cruelty of our time tempts us to abandon any dream of freedom. And so we close in on ourselves, within our fragile certainty and security, inside the circle of people we like, in our safe routine.Withdrawing into ourselves is a sign of defeat, and it increases our fear of “others”, strangers, outsiders, foreigners especially today, when migrants and refugees arrive to knock at our door in search of protection, security, and a better future.It is not easy to enter into someone else’s culture, to put on the shoes of people who are so different from us and understand their thoughts and experiences. And so we often refuse to encounter others and raise barriers to protect ourselves. Instead of this, we are called to overcome fear and open up to encounter.” Pope FrancisThe Church has been celebrating World’s Day of Migrants and Refugees ever since 1914. It is always an opportunity for her to express concern for the most vulnerable people, who have to move for one reason or another; it is also an opportunity to pray for the challenges of migration and to raise awareness of the opportunities it offers.For 2019, Pope Francis has chosen the theme “It is not only about migrants” to help remove our blinders and to ensure that no one is excluded from society, whether they are long-term residents or newcomers.Download here the full kit for Pastoral use.Official websiteIT IS NOT JUST ABOUT MIGRANTS