Missionaries of Africa

Workshop in Rome on Interculturality

Posted on 02/09/201902/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Workshop on Interculturality

The workshop on the theme “Living in an intercultural community as an apostolic witness today” will take place at the Generalate from 1 to 8 September 2019. Confreres from all provinces and sections participate in order to become resource persons available to their respective province.

Why this training workshop? We want to follow up on the 28th General Chapter which ‘’invites us to fully commit ourselves to building communities which are truly intercultural’’.

Andreas Göpfert

Text of the Opening Address of Francis Barnes (First Assistant i.c. of on-going Formation)

A word of thanks from Mgr Michael Fitzgerald

Posted on 02/09/201902/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

We have received this Word of thanks for the many who congratulated Mgr. Michael Fitzgerald after the announcement of his inclusion in the College of Cardinals.

Thank you for your congratulations on my inclusion in the College of Cardinals, and I would ask you to join me in thanking Pope Francis for this honour. I would like to include in this expression of gratitude all those Catholics and other Christians and people of all different religions who have helped me to serve in the field of interreligious relations. I would ask you to pray for me so that I may continue to give this service generously and joyfully.

+ Michael Fitzgerald

Mgr Fitzgerald Cardinal

Posted on 01/09/201901/09/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Pope announces 13 new Cardinals for the missionary Church

At the Angelus Pope Francis reads the names of those prelates who will receive the red hat on October 5th, the vigil of the Amazon Synod.

After reciting the Angelus in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, Pope Francis announced a consistory to be held on 5 October for the nomination of 10 new Cardinals. He said that the places where these new Cardinals come from express the missionary vocation of the Church as she continues to announce the merciful love of God to every person on earth.

[The names of the ten new Cardinals are proclaimed… Then, comes the big piece of news]

Along with these new Cardinals, the Pope is adding two Archbishops and a Bishop who have served the Church in a distinguished way:

1. 1. Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald – Archbishop Emeritus of Nepte
  2. Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevicius, sj – Archbishop Emeritus of Kaunas
  3. Bishop Eugenio Dal Corso, psdp – Bishop Emeritus of Benguela

Let us pray for the new Cardinals so that, confirming their adhesion to Christ, they might help in my ministry as Bishop of Rome for the good of all the faithful Holy People of God.

From all of us, in Rome and elsewhere, heartfelt congratulations to you, Michael.

Protect the Oceans – Pope’s video for september

Posted on 31/08/201931/08/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Let's protect the oceans

The Pope's video - September 2019

One way to explain the importance of taking care of the oceans is to use a couple of simple but effective examples: one out of every two people lives off of the ocean, and of every two breaths we take, one is thanks to the oceans. Let us take care of them. Their death is the death of all life on earth, including us.

“Oceans contain the bulk of our planet’s water supply, and also most of the immense variety of living creatures, many of which are threatened for various reasons.

Our solidarity with the ‘common home’ is born from our faith. Creation is a project of love given by God to humanity.

Let us pray this month that politicians, scientists and economists work together to protect the world’s seas and oceans.”

Season of Creation 2019

Posted on 31/08/201931/08/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Season of Creation 2019

Every Christian community around the world is invited to celebrate “The Season of Creation” in its own way. It is a privileged moment to pray, reflect and take concrete measures to preserve creation and to integrate our concerns for the “Common House” into our daily attitudes and behaviours.

- September 1st, World Day of Prayer for Creation, opens the season every year.
- October 4 is the feast day of St. Francis and the last day of the season of creation.

This year the theme of the Season of Creation, chosen by its international steering committee, is “The Web of Life: Biodiversity as God’s Blessing”, a theme that resonates with the important and popular message of Pope Francis that everything is connected.

There are educational materials available. Attached to this mail, you will find already some proposals for prayer. In the coming weeks, you will receive further information on possible activities. If you already want to know more, please consult the following page: https://seasonofcreation.org/guide/

Fraternally wishes

Andreas Göpfert, Coordination JPIC-ED

Manuel for the Season of Creation 2019

Ecumenical Prayer Service for the Season of Creation

Interview of Stéphane Joulain

Posted on 30/08/201930/08/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Last January, Stéphane Joulain conducted a training course on the fight against child sexual abuse for the ecclesial staff of the diocese of Bordeaux in France. On this occasion, he gave an excellent interview, in French!

As a reminder, Stéphane Joulain is a psychotherapist and a member of the Society of Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers). He has been working on this issue for over fifteen years, accompanying victims and participating in the treatment of sexual assault offenders in Canada. He teaches in Rome and Africa on the prevention of sexual abuse.

Africana: Botswana’s Good Governance

Posted on 20/08/201920/08/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Good governance

Botswana’s recent history is explained in the awareness of national identity, the rejection of the colonisers’ racial discrimination and the struggle for independence. But the struggle for independence is strengthened by appropriate economic and educational policies.

Three main factors help to understand Botswana’s recent history: the independence, the economy and the social policy.

The optimism of independence

The independence struggle of the Batswanas has its founding father in Seretse Khama. In 1944, Seretse Khama, who was heir to King Khama Il of the Tswana ethnic group, which is the majority in the country, went to Oxford to study law where he married Ruth Williams, an English clerk. The wedding scandalized the English and Afrikaners, who were already imposing racial separation (apartheid), and got the English government to prohibit Seretse from returning to his land, but he resisted pressure and with the massive support of his people, maintained his leadership and returned in 1956. Nine years later, in the first general election, the party he founded, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), won 80% of the vote and Seretse was elected Botswana’s first President.

The new government decided to join the countries fighting against apartheid in South Africa and to join the South African Development Community (SADC), whose aim was to break the economic dependence of the nine black southern African countries on South Africa.

The economy

At the beginning of the 20th century, 97% of Batswanas lived in the countryside and each family owned at least a couple of cows and the richest had oxen to plow the land. Afrikaners dominated agriculture and controlled 60% of meat exports. In 1966, the year of independence, the urban population reached 15% and almost 40% of the rural inhabitants had no livestock. Botswana was one of the poorest countries in Africa, with a GDP of $70. But in 1971, Botswana was lucky enough to discover the diamond mines of Orapa (in the East). This unexpected wealth produced huge foreign exchange reserves and made its currency the strongest in Africa. Between 1978 and 1988, Botswana became the world’s third largest producer of diamonds, after Australia and the DR of Congo, and the world’s second largest exporter of diamonds, after Russia. The country’s economy grew at a record rate of 12% per year. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2016 this country had a per capita income of 16,947 dollars, one of the highest in Africa and a GDP of 14,443 million dollars. However, three fifths of the population live on subsistence crops or “non-institutional” activities, with unemployment at 20%. Although Botswana’s history highlights good governance and economic growth supported by prudent macroeconomic management and fiscal balance, the country’s high levels of poverty are evident, even though President Seretse pursued a conciliatory policy with people of European origin who managed 80% of the economy and promoted livestock in a country with a vast semi-desert region, making Botswana one of Southern Africa’s main exporters of livestock and meat.

His successor, Vice President Ketumile Masire (1980-1998) came under strong pressure from revolutionary socialist groups to limit the concentration of fertile land in European hands and increase the area allocated to cooperatives. The peasants accused the big landowners of raising too much cattle on poor land which, in the short term, would become useless for farming. In addition, a movement emerged in favour of the nationalisation of the diamond, copper and nickel mines exploited by South African companies.

To make matters worse, Masire had to face the economic problem arising from the decline in international demand for diamonds. In 1991, the country suffered the biggest strikes since independence; public workers demanded a 154 per cent wage increase and 18,000 civil servants were laid off; in 1992, unemployment reached 25 per cent. To reduce unemployment, the government encouraged the installation of non-mining industries, but a severe drought forced the authorities to drastically reduce public spending and reduce more than a third of the labour force employed directly or indirectly by the state. After a strike in August 2004, about a thousand workers of the diamond company Debswana Diamond Company were laid off. Debswana is the largest diamond mining company operating in Botswana, 50% state-owned, providing approximately 40% of its revenues.

In May 2006, a highly contagious outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) was detected in the southeastern part of the country, the area of highest beef production. Due to the closure of exports and slaughterhouses, losses exceeded several million dollars and threatened the survival of the meat industry.

Festus Mogae (1999-2008), successor to President Masire, opted for economic liberalization and development, making Botswana one of the most stable countries on the continent.

In 2009, the BDP won the elections again and its leader, lan Khama (son of Seretse), was elected President of Botswana; in April 2018 he resigned and was replaced by Mokgweetsi Masisi, the current President. lan Khama faced opposition parties and a difficult socio-economic reality, with growing unemployment, lack of technical training of young people, absence of entrepreneurial initiatives, need to improve educational and health care (it is public, but difficult to access because of the huge distances).

In 1996, mineral exports represented 47% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. In 2007, when significant quantities of uranium were discovered, several international mining corporations established regional headquarters in Botswana, given the increased production of diamonds, gold, uranium, copper and even oil. In 2009, the government announced that it would try to change its economic dependence on diamonds, in the face of serious concerns that diamonds will run out in the next 20 years. To this end, he developed a tourism policy based on the country’s rich flora and fauna, making tourism the second source of income.

Social policy.

One of the policies of successive Botswana governments has been to promote social welfare. Between the 1980s and 1990s, the government implemented social policies against poverty and increased access to education and health care, so that between 1986 and 2003, the percentage of Batswanas living in poverty fell from 59% to 30.6%, according to World Bank data.

The high investment in education, 10% of GDP, has managed to conquer levels of almost total and free education, 90% according to UNICEF, while in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa it barely reaches 60%. There have been notable improvements in the health sector with a significant decrease in child mortality. But Botswana’s drama is AIDS, it is the country with the highest percentage of AIDS sufferers in the world, a prevalence of 21.4% among 15-49 year olds, according to the World Health Organization. The positive thing is that, according to this organization, more than 95% of those affected can access antiretroviral therapy for cases with advanced infection.

However, the Botswanan government was not so successful when in 1995, having discovered important diamond mines in the Kalahari desert, land of the Bushmen for 30,000 years, it decided to launch a campaign of harassment to expel the Bushmen living in the Central Kalahari Reserve and move them to ‘resettlement camps.

The government, depriving them of water and food, managed to relocate the last contingent of 2,200 Bushmen. According to Botswana law, mining activities and minerals extraction are not subject to the claims of indigenous communities, even if they are residents of those areas. But the Bushmen sued the government and in May 2006 the Botswana High Court ruled in favour of the Bushman people, ruling that exile and subsequent relocation had been “unconstitutional and illegal” and setting the authorities and their attempt to extract diamonds from these lands backwards. By then, more than 10% of the plaintiffs had died in the relocation camps.

Magazine Africana of the Sector of Spain n° 197 of June 2019

Africana: History of a stable country

Posted on 17/08/201918/08/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

History of a stable story

In just a few years, Botswana has become the most stable and thriving country on the African continent. Botswana represents, according to the World Bank, “one of the true successes of economic and human development in Africa”. Its history also takes us back to the beginnings of human habitation on the African continent.

Since several African nations gained their independence in the 1960s, Africa has undergone major transformations, moving from the independence euphoria and pessimism of the 1970s and 1980s to the optimism of the 1990s that has led some media to speak of “Afro-realism”. We have moved from headlines such as “Africa, the hopeless continent” to “Africa emerges, the hopeful continent”.

The problems are not over, but the hopes have been increasing so that more than one country has managed to advance for the good of the population in general. One such country is Botswana.

Upon independence from the United Kingdom in September 1966, Botswana’s future was not very promising; five decades later, it is considered one of the most stable and thriving countries on the African continent. Botswana is the only African country that has not suffered any coup d’état, maintaining exemplary stability. In its 2017 report, the World Bank ranked Botswana among the 16 countries with the greatest political stability and absence of violence in the world and the first among the African people.

For the United Nations, Botswana is “one of the true successes of Africa’s economic and human development”. Greg Mills of the Brenthurst Foundation, an independent South African economic research group, says that Botswana’s transformation is “the result of a long-term vision, political stability and prudent governments”. Situated in southern Africa, the Republic of Botswana is bordered to the north by Zambia and Angola, to the south by South Africa, to the east by Zimbabwe and to the west by Namibia. Its area is as large as that of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), with a population of 2,370,000 inhabitants since the Kalahari desert occupies 70% of the territory (with only 4% of the remaining area suitable for agriculture). In the north are the marshy basins of the rivers Makgarikgari and Okavango that irrigate a large expanse of savannas, where livestock and agriculture are the main economic activities. Although English is the official language, Setsuana, Cannabis, San (Bushman), Khoi-khoi (Hotentote) and Ndebele are spoken. Its inhabitants are mostly Christians (76%), of which 6% are Catholics; 20% are faithful to the traditional religion and the rest are minorities Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims.

At the origin of the first African peoples
To get to know Botswana you have to delve into its past, a past that goes back millennia, to the dawn of humanity, when man took his first steps through the savannas of southern and eastern Africa. These peoples inhabited the great plains, moving with the seasons through meadows and mountains through the great wetlands that covered the north of Botswana. Thirty thousand years ago, the Bushmen, the main hominid group in southern Africa, evolved into an organized society of hunter-gatherers; anthropologists believe they are the ancestors of today’s Bushmen living in Botswana. With the Neolithic, some of these peoples adopted a pastoral lifestyle, sowing and grazing cattle on the banks of the Okavango River. Some migrated west to central Namibia, and in 70 B.C., others reached the Cape of Good Hope.

Between 200 and 500, the Bantu came to these lands from the north and east of the continent. One of the first and most powerful groups to inhabit this region was the Sotho-Tswana, formed by three peoples: the northern Basotho who settled in South Africa; the southern Basotho who settled in Leshoto; and the western Basotho who occupied what is now Botswana. By the year 600, groups of nomadic herders began to arrive from Zimbabwe; in the 13th century almost all of eastern Botswana was under the influence of Great Zimbabwe, one of Africa’s most legendary ancient kingdoms. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Great Zimbabwe absorbed many tribal territories in northeastern Botswana; several hundred years later, the region was part of the Monomatapa kingdom that succeeded that of Great Zimbabwe.

European colonisation

From the 18th century onwards, the British, Dutch and Portuguese arrived. The British tried to unite the continent from South Africa to Egypt and the Portuguese wanted to unite their colonies of Angola and Mozambique through Botswana. The fact is that this region became a real crossroads between the different strategic colonial interests, and between these and the Tswana tribes. In 1840, came the Boers or Afrikaners who were Dutch settlers fleeing the English established in Cape Town.

The Boers, who were farmers, disputed the scarce fertile lands to the Tswanas, provoking conflicts between them and the Zulu whom the white settlers had expelled from southern Africa.

Many Tswana began working on the Boers’ farms, but it was an uncomfortable association plagued with revolt and violence. In 1895, three tribal Tswana kings went to London seeking support against the Boers and against German expansion from Namibia.

Botswana became a British protectorate under the name Bechuanaland, but the Tswana kings had to grant, in exchange for protection, that the British Company of South Africa build a railway between their lands and Zimbabwe. British tutelage prevented these lands from being absorbed by South Africa, but facilitated economic domination by the Boers. Great Britain colonised Botswana until, giving in to the nationalist movement, which began in the 1950s, it granted independence on 30 September 1966.

Magazine Africana from the Sector of Spain, n° 197 of June 2019

Africana : Botswana, l’exception africaine

Posted on 16/08/201916/08/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Botswana, the African exception

The title of this issue of Africana “Botswana, the African exception” does not attempt to camouflage the shortcomings of this country, interesting in many respects, but in need, like many others, of healing reforms. It is only intended to underline its particularity in its most positive aspects, which are many.

Botswana distinguishes itself from other African countries by the good state of its economy. When it became independent from the United Kingdom in 1966, Botswana was a poor country, a desert for the most part of its territory; a country with no great future. However, in 2016, fifty years later, Botswana had become one of the most prosperous countries in the world, with a per capita income of $16,947, mainly due to its diamond exports. Botswana is, after Russia, the second largest exporter of this precious stone, although its production in gold, uranium, copper and even oil is not negligible. One of Botswana’s economic successes was its ability to diversify its sources of income, also favouring other sectors, such as livestock and tourism. We must not forget that Botswana has one of the richest wildlife sanctuaries on the planet, an exuberant flora and fauna, a river, the Okavango, 1,000 kilometers long, which flows into the Kalahari desert, creating a beautiful delta in its region. Thanks to its diversified diamond, tourism and beef policies, Botswana has become one of Southern Africa’s leading livestock and meat exporters.

For the United Nations, Botswana is “one of the true successes of Africa’s economic and human development.” Greg Mills of the Brenthurst Foundation, an independent South African economic research group, says Botswana’s transformation is “the result of long-term vision, political stability and prudent governance.”

Botswana comfortably passes the examination of a country with acceptable governance. But not everything is perfect. The author of the report, Father Juan Manuel Pérez Charlin, warns us, with good judgment, that there are voices of discontent towards the authoritarian policies of the Government and customs of nepotism, discrimination and exclusions that go against the equality of rights of all citizens.

A policy based solely on economic criteria leads to forgetting – as has already happened and is still happening with the Bushmen – the most fundamental rights of the individual and of people. Botswana is the African exception, but it seems that there is room for improvement.

Magazine AFRICANA of the sector of Spain – June 2019 – N° 197

Temporary Profile of Jan lenssen

Posted on 13/08/201913/08/2019 by Vitus Danaa Abobo

Profile of Jan Lenssen, M.Afr.

Jan Lenssen died a few days ago in Belgium and already his profile was sent to all the Belgian confreres in Dutch, as Jan was from the Limburg province, in a Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Jan was provincial of Belgium and first assistant to the Superior General. He had a very intense life too. The official translation of the profile, in French and English, will follow in due time, but here comes an unofficial translation, quickly made for your information. The Webmaster.

Jan was born on 13 July 1941 in Kaulille in the province of Limburg, but the family would soon move to Bree. The family consisted of five boys and three girls. The father was a teacher and co-founder of the Legion of Mary section in Bree. An uncle of his mother, Father Laurens Coninx, worked as a White Father in the diocese of Mahagi (where he was to be murdered in Aba in November 1964), and her brother, Laurens (junior), worked in the diocese of Bunia. Jan followed the Greek-Latin humanities in the St-Michael’s’ college in Bree, where he was active at the KSA (Association of the Catholic Scouts). In September 1959, he followed his older brother Rik in joining the White Fathers in Boechout. He did his novitiate in Varsenare and the theological studies in Heverlee. His father died in February 1965. On 25 June 1965 Jan took his missionary oath and on 25 June 1966 he was ordained a priest. During his years of formation, Jan is described as a talented young man, very balanced, exemplary and helpful. He knows what he wants and is capable of taking on a leadership role. He devoted himself very diligently to the apostolate activities. He is a man with practical and common sense and a calm, delicate and discreet way of dealing with things. From 1966 to 1970, he studied in Rome, first theology at the Gregoriana, then morality at the Alphonsianum, ending with a thesis on “The catechumenate after Vatican II”.

In September 1970, Jan left for Rwanda and learnt Kinyarwanda at the Language Centre (CELA) in Kigali. In February 1971 he was a priest in Masaka, a “paysannat” not far from Kigali, where from 1973 to 1975 he took on the task of “visiting professor” of canon law at the Major Seminary in Nyakibanda. He is also “vice-secretary” of the Episcopal Conference. In 1974 he became a parish priest and the following year he handed over the parish to the Pallotine Fathers. In April 1975 he went on leave and made a study trip to Malawi and Mali. Despite Bishop Perraudin’s personal intervention to the Superior General, Father Vasseur, in order not to take away “one of the best missionaries we absolutely need”, in September 1975, Jan succeeded his brother Rik in the missionary animation of the diocese of Hasselt, and became a professor of moral theology at the Major Seminary in St. Truiden. The Hasselt missionary animation group was very active and Jan regularly wrote in the “Schakel”, the diocesan magazine for missionary animation and deepening of faith. At the beginning of December, Jan becomes provincial assistant of Belgium. He is a delegate at the Chapter of 1980 and in June 1981 he is appointed provincial. He would remain so for two mandates. During these years he was also a member of the National Missionary Commission, of the Inter Diocesan Pastoral Council, of the National Vocation Commission, and of the Committee for Missionary Institutes. He founded the “Blue Torre” centre in Varsenare, installed a community at the Milcamp Avenue in Schaerbeek, but closed the one in Auderghem. In 1983, he also had to manage the “forced return” of many brothers from Burundi. At the 1986 Chapter, he was elected the first General Assistant. In the same year, he became a representative of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity in the World Council of Churches in Geneva, a task which he will continue to perform until 2013. He was especially in charge of the ecumenical dimension in pastoral work, including solutions of solidarity towards the poorest.

Jan’s first reaction to his appointment in Rome: “It is a grace to be so closely involved in the joys and tasks of the entire family of the White Fathers and the African Church”. Within the General Council, he was especially responsible for financial and legal matters, elderly brothers and the ecumenical movement. He was also the pivot of the year of commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of Cardinal Lavigerie.

In July 1992, Jan took a well-deserved sabbatical, partly in France and partly in Great Britain. In July 1993 he returned to Rwanda and joined the parish of Nyamirambo in the crowded capital of Kigali. It was there that he met the genocide: “That Friday, after the death of Habyarimana, a kalashnikov against my belly, guarded by interahamwe, next to my confreres, death was doing its job: at my feet a few bloodily murdered children they had pulled out of my arms; a mother was bleeding to death while holding close her child. Machete and rifle were going up and down, and in the church – “sanctuary” – grenades were exploding. Death has nestled itself in my deepest heart ever since that day in April 1994. Together with several Belgian confreres, Jan was evacuated to Belgium on April 14. Since many parishes were evacuated because of the violence of the war, most of the confreres also had to flee temporarily. In August 1994, Jan was asked to go back to Rwanda on an ‘exploratory trip’ in order to see if the confreres could return, which, to a limited extent, was the case.

Jan himself returned to Rwanda as a regional on 7 December 1994. He will fulfil two mandates, which will be extended until the end of 2000. In January 1995 he became president of the Association of Religious Superiors, both male and female. The main concern was then to deal with the tragic events and to start a long road to reconciliation. In 1997 Jan wrote: “We are in the movement of a Church conscious of its integration into human history, even into sin… We are aware of the imperfections and even the faults that we may have committed during this century of missionary commitment… We hope one day to find the understanding, openness and atmosphere to make the truth… In this reconstruction work we would like to join the efforts of other churches and their communities, our Sisters and Brothers”. During these years, Jan was also secretary of the Episcopal Commission on Ecumenism. In 1998, he participated in the Chapter. At the end of 1998, he had to go on sick leave for the first time.

When his task in Rwanda was over, he was appointed in Tanzania in May 2001 and went to study Kiswahili in Kipalapala. In October, he moved to Nairobi (Kenya) in our community of Saint-Charles Lwanga on Ngong Road. He was appointed National Executive Secretary for the Commission for Ecumenism of the Bishop’s Conference of Kenya and Professor at the International Mission Institute “Tangaza” in Nairobi. He had pastoral commitment in the parish, visited AIDS patients in the nearby hospital of the Coptic Church, and cared for street children. He proudly testifies: “The ecumenical workgroup of the Kenya Bishops’ Conference is coming to life”. He deals with ecumenical themes in the Catholic radio programme. Jan is still an active member of the Mission and Evangelization Commission of the World Council of Churches, which is a rarity for Catholics. This led him in 1989 to San Antonio in the USA, in 1996 to Salvador in Brazil, in 2005 to Athens and in 2010 to Edinburgh. At his farewell in Kenya at the end of 2008, the General Secretary of the Episcopal Conference stated: “Fr. Lenssen leaves behind a Commission that is growing and creating impact more than ever envisaged.

At the beginning of 2009, Jan was appointed to Belgium, officially for the African pastoral service in the two vicariates of Brussels, for the White Fathers, more specifically in our project Centre AMANI. He soon became a member of the Ecumenical Committee of the Churches of Brussels. In March 2010, as part of the French-speaking Catholic Radio (RCF Bruxelles), he launches a weekly programme “Rencontrer l’Afrique” (broadcasted several times). Jan and his AMANI staff both seeked out and briefed the speakers. It was a feat of strength to find relevant speakers each time. The 250 causeries were broadcast from March 2010 to July 2014. In the meantime, it was discovered that Jan was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Appropriate medication will apparently keep the disease under control for years to come. He took several steps to facilitate the financing of AMANI projects. Every year he made a booklet in French and Dutch, for the Week of Unity. Jan was answering many calls from the Rwandan community (baptisms, marriages, deaths…). He followed their charismatic group “Miséricorde divine”. In 2012, he will be responsible for his community. After 25 years, he resigns as a representative of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. In May 2014, the evolution of his illness will no longer allow him to fulfill his many tasks and he asks to be dismissed. In November 2015, he left for Genk ‘at rest’. In May 2016, the International Ecumenical Movement of Kenya awarded him the decoration ‘Ecumenist Hero’. In October 2016 he will participate in the session for the over 70s in Rome. However, sitting still is not for Jan. He still has so many plans ahead and there is so much to do. His body is increasingly failing him, but his will is driving him forward and his agenda is still full…. A holy fire that has propelled him all his life and that has made his life so fruitful for many.

At the beginning of September 2018, Jan will come to Evere because of the need for medical follow-up. A walker allows him to carry on with what he is still planning enthusiastically. At the end of July 2019, he was taken to St. Michael’s clinic, where, after unsuccessful attempts, he was transferred to palliative care. Jan died there peacefully on August 10.

Jef Vleugels, M.Afr.