Keynote Address by;

Alfred Agyenta

(Bishop of Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese)

Theme:

FRATELLI TUTTI AND COVID 19; CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS FOR EFFECTIVE EVANGELIZATION IN THE TAMALE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE

First of all, I will make some preliminary remarks about TEPPCON, the reason for which we have gathered here in the first place. Secondly, I will discuss the Covid-19 pandemic that is still with us; the challenges it has posed and continues to pose to evangelization as well as the opportunities that it offers for a renewed evangelization. Thirdly and finally, I will deal with the message of the encyclical letter of Pope Francis Fratelli Tutti, and its relevance for us as Christians and as aneffective tool for evangelization.

TEPPCON; A FORUM FOR PASTORAL COLLABORATION; A PRECIOUS GIFT AND A BIG RESPONSIBILITY

The Tamale Ecclesiastical Provincial Pastoral Conference (TEPPCON) is a forum for pastoral collaboration among the five dioceses of the north. It is by nature a free association of the five dioceses for joint and collaborative action in the areas of pastoral and socio-economic activities.

It is a gift to the five dioceses of the north much to the envy of our southern dioceses who do not have a such forum at their disposal. However, this is also a gift that imposes a grave responsibility on the shoulders of the constituent dioceses. Making TEPPCON work effectively to achieve the goals for which it was created requires hard work and commitment which does not come so easily.

As a precious and enviable gift, TEPPCON offers a lot of opportunities for the effective promotion of the Gospel and integral human development in northern Ghana. We commend the founding fathers for this pastoral initiative. A lot has been achieved in its 44 years of existence;

Admittedly, in some areas we have achieved remarkable successes in our joint and collaborative efforts as a province whilst in others we are still very much challenged.

A lot has been achieved in the area of integral human development, especially in the area of education, socio-economic development, good governance Justice and Peace. In the area of education, for instance, the  KAAD scholarship programme, the youth exchange programmes( SVS-SS Peter and Paul- University of Munster), have made remarkable impact on the lives of our young people thanks to TEPPCON). In the area of socio economic development many lives have been touched, especially in the rural areas, thanks to the partnership activities in the various twinned parishes (e.g. Support to Aids Patients, scholarship for needy students, infrastructure in the form of classrooms and furniture). In the area of good governance, justice and Peace a lot has also been achieved through the civic education programme and other peace initiatives. However, in the area of joint pastoral initiatives, much still leaves to be desired. We must admit that it has not been very easy, judging from the work of the TEPPCON commissions.

Nevertheless, in general TEPPCON has been a blessing for us as a province and indeed for Northern Ghana. It might be useful and would serve to highlight the contribution of the Church to the development of Northern Ghana, if we could commission a study on the impact of the TEPPCON partnership initiatives in development of the north. It is also heartwarming to learn of the initiatives being taken to strengthen the collaboration among the development partners in the north, of which Teppcon is one.

We must, however, acknowledge that making TEPPCON function effectively has been and still a major challenge to us. The responsibility that the Teppcon lays on the member dioceses and their respective faithful has yet to be fully appreciated. After 44 years, the Teppcon is still very much challenged in the fulfillment of its core mandate, namely  the promotion of evangelization in the north. TEPPCON, admittedly suffers from weak administrative structures, the lack of functional organs of operation ( how are the commissions faring ), poor funding (the Teppcon collections and contributions remain a major concern of the leadership) and, I would say, a general lack of enthusiasm on the part of member dioceses. With particular reference to the lack of enthusiasm, one cannot fail to recognize in the correspondence from the TEPPCON secretariat a certain feeling of desperation and exasperation; invariably the secretary has to nudge and push, plead and almost beg for the needed attention to one or the other request made to the diocesan Teppcon representatives. In this regard we are all culpable.

As noted, the goal of TEPPCON  as pastoral organ is to foster a more effective evangelization of northern Ghana taking advantage of the common geographical, demographic, economic and social features of the province.  However, rather than speaking of uniformity or homogeneity, the province must be considered more in terms of unity in diversity. In the light of wide ranging diversity that exists even within the respective member dioceses ( cf in NB diocese ten ethnic/ linguistic groups) there is the need for careful consideration when it comes to the application of TEPPCON pastoral decisions across board. The expectation of a complete, wholesale implementation of pastoral decisions reached at TEPPCON level is likely to be challenged by the aforementioned diversity (probably the reason for the challenges the commissions face in their work).

Originally, TEPPCON comprised the 3 dioceses located within 3 regions of the North (Upper East, Upper West and Northern region). In 2018 two new regions, North East (Nalerigu) and Savannah (Damongo) were  created, bringing the political jurisdictions to five. TEPPCON may need to examine what the implications of these new political jurisdictions are for the achievement of its goals. Of course, the dioceses remain the main constituents of TEPPCON, but what do the new political structures within the province bring for the achievement of the goals of TEPPCON?

 

1. THE COVID -19 PANDEMIC AND ITS EFFECTS IN OUR PROVINCE

The outbreak and containment of the Pandemic

The Coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19 for short, is a contagious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The disease has since spread worldwide, leading to an ongoing pandemic.

Multiple variants of the virus have emerged and become dominant in many countries since 2021. Among the most virulent or dangerous variants, we are told, are the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants. As of  Friday 19^th November,  the global statistics stands at 257 million cases so far recorded and 5.15 million deaths confirmed, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

Recommended preventive measures to stop infections include social distancing, wearing of face masks in public, ventilation and air-filtering, covering one’s mouth when sneezing or coughing, hand washing, disinfecting surfaces, lockdown and quarantining people who have been exposed or are symptomatic. Several vaccines have been approved and distributed in various countries and mass vaccination campaigns  have been undertaken across the globe since December 2020.

The impact of the pandemic globally has been devasting in almost every sphere of life but most especially in the area of education delivery (cf  the closure of schools and learning centres) religious activities (cf. suspension/restrictions of public worship and social gatherings), socio-economic activities (loss of businesses and employment).

Covid-19 in Ghana and its effects

Ghana recorded its first case of the Corona Virus on the 12^th of March 2020 in the capital city. From that time onwards, the drama of the spread of the disease and efforts to contain and mitigate its devastating consequences ensued. As of 18^th November, the total number of reported cases stood at 131,000 with 1,207 deaths.

The Government’s response was initially swift and impressive, especially with the programme of contact tracing, quarantine and treatment of infected persons. This was followed immediately by the imposition of bans and restrictions on social gatherings of various types, namely civil, political and religious.

In Ghana it could be said that the effects of the measures adopted to prevent the spread of the disease appeared to have been more biting than the scourge of the disease itself.  For our purpose, I would like to discuss briefly some of the devasting effects of the measures on public religious worship, education and social life in general. I will also point out the challenges these measures posed to the work of evangelization on the one hand and on the other, the opportunities offered for new and creative forms of evangelization.

The closure of the Churches and the  ban on public worship

The temporary closure of churches and the ban on public worship came into effect in April 2020, shortly before Easter of that year. This was unprecedented, for the first time in the living memory of this country churches were closed to the public and no religious gatherings were permitted. This ban lasted for several months and had some dire consequences on the lives of the lay faithful, on the life and ministry of the pastors and on the running of church institutions;

For some of our lay faithful, for whom the Sunday mass was the only means of practicing their faith and a source of spiritual renewal, the closure of the churches and the ban on public worship was a big blow to their spiritual lives. Some of these people have never developed the habit of private and personal prayer nor developed a family spirituality. It was a very very difficult period for most of those who found themselves in this situation.

For the clergy, especially for the diocesan clergy, the closure of the churches and the ban on public worship was a very strange experience. For the first time, some priests woke up in the morning and did not know what to do with themselves; no public mass, no pastoral visits, no meetings, no funerals, no weddings, etc. For us as diocesan priests, whose spirituality is derived from the exercise of our pastoral ministry, namely tending the flock, it was a trying period. In the situation where we had no access to the flock how could we continue to live our priesthood in a meaningful way, without public masses, pastoral visits, no celebration of the sacraments etc. I believe during these months, some priests simply took a long leave of absence or just had a field day and took it easy.

One aspect of these trying times for some pastors was the call to attend to the Covid-19 patients in the hospitals or at the treatment centres, burying Covid-19 victims and accompanying the bereaved families. The moving stories of the lives of heroic pastors in the past who served victims of plagues and who in the course of their pastoral ministry caught the diseases and eventually died, became a concrete reality for some of our brother priests. These were trying times for priests, called to exercise pastoral charity at the risk of their own lives for the sake of a brother or sister. The priest was rightly considered in this regard a front-line worker.

The Priests were call to exercise their pastoral ministry in a difficult time that required imitation of the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Some priests died of Covid-19, obviously, but how many of these succumbed to the disease in the line of duty is yet to be ascertained and it would be highly significant if we had information about such cases.

The impact of the closure of churches and the ban on public worship took a heavy toll on parish life in general. Parishes and institutions that relied heavily on the Sunday and allied collections as well as on offertory gifts to survive were hard hit during this period. The problem of the upkeep of the pastors was not as acute as the servicing of utility bills and the payment of the salaries of parish support staff. No priest died of starvation during this period but some parishes had to strike a deal with their support staff to either accept half pay or risk being laid off.

We need to express our gratitude to the lay faithful for their kindness and generosity towards the pastors during the period of the closure of the churches. Some pastors admitted they never had so much material support from the lay faithful as they did during that period.

The Closures of schools and learning centers

The closure of schools and other learning centers also had a telling effect on the lives of people that posed challenges to the Church’s mission. Within the period that schools were closed down domestic violence and child abuse was reportedly on the rise. A survey conducted by the Catholic Education Unit of my diocese at the time schools were reopened revealed that between the period of the closure and the reopening of schools, a number of school girls got pregnant and others were married off. 

These statistics are from only 31 schools out of the 356 schools managed by the Catholic Education Unit

Most of these school children will not be returning to school any time soon, if they ever will. The question is what can and should be done for these casualties of the pandemic.

The drawback on the learning ability of most children in our rural communities is incalculable. The loss of contact hours and learning opportunities have irreversibly put some of these kids at a great disadvantage vis a vis their counterparts in the cities. The inequality gap created between the rural kids who had no access to ICT (internet, computer, online tuition) and the city kids who had access to all these is not likely to be bridged any time sooner.  While the kids in the cities continued to learn amidst the pandemic, the village kids probably worked with their parents on the farms or simply played around while waiting for schools to reopen so they could resume learning.  The question is what can and should be done to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on these kids?

The partial lockdown of Greater Accra and Kumasi and its aftermath

Although the effect of the lockdown was mostly felt in Accra and Kumasi, the lockdown also had some repercussions in our province. When the lockdown was announced there was a massive exodus of northerners who tried to flee the lockdown areas and to return home. Most of us remember seeing on TV images of truck loads of children and women fleeing these cities in a desperate attempt to return home.

What we witnessed was these vulnerable individuals caught between the lockdown cities and their hometowns. As they fled the lockdown, they had to face the apprehension of their brothers and sisters at home who were warned to keep off the returnees. Some of the returnees were held outside their villages for days to be screened before they could be allowed in. In the meantime, radio announcements went out on the FM stations cautioning the villagers not to welcome their relatives from Kumasi with the usual warmth but to keep their distance from them, to provide a place for them to quarantine and not even to accept any gift from them for fear of being infected. This was the treatment the returnees were subjected to upon returning home.

Stigmatization of the infected persons

At a certain point in the course of the pandemic there was the scare of stigma for those who had gotten the disease and had recovered, People did not want to have anything to do with them, even to buy goods from them or do any business with them. This was quickly dealt with, fortunately, with some amount of education and conscientization. However, there were some individuals who suffered this stigmatization.

Conclusion

Covid-19 is still with us but much of the terror of the disease has died down or seems to have died down.   The latest national statistics on the disease stands at 131,727 recorded cases of which 1,207 had died of the disease. The current number of active cases stands at 336 and the number of those who have received the vaccine is 3,415,474.

The situation seems to be returning to normalcy but as Pope Francis has repeatedly warned, it will be to our own detriment if we emerged from this pandemic having not learnt to do things differently. In this light, it might be useful to point out some positive side of the effects of the pandemic, that can serve us well in our personal lives and for the mission of the Church.

Some lessons learnt

I mentioned earlier that in the wake of the pandemic when our churches were closed and public worship was banned, some of our lay faithful felt like fish out of water when their only means of spiritual sustenance, the Sunday liturgy, was suppressed. For those whose faith was more of a social event, no religious service on Sundays simply meant an additional free time over the weekend for other things. However, for the more serious-minded Christians, for whom even the religious services on radio and television were not enough, it was an occasion and opportunity to develop what they had hitherto lacked, namely a personal spirituality. Learning to pray privately, to pray with family members was a difficult task for most people but it had become a necessity. Consequently, some began to hunt for prayer books and religious literature, at least for those who are able to read, to sustain their spiritual lives. (This was an opportunity for personal faith formation for serious minded Christians).

As pastors we also had some hard lessons to learn. In the situation where we had no immediate access to the flock and were being confronted by a disease for which no immediate remedy was available, some quickly developed was what I would called an apostolate of prayer.

Carrying out this apostolate of prayer had a double effect; supplicating for an end to the pandemic and by so doing gradually developing our personal prayer life, which for most of us had suffered seriously for want of time. In normal times, most priests in parishes often managed only morning prayers on a regular basis and possibly prayers before meals and occasionally evening prayers. The rest of the Office of the Hours (mid-morning, midday, mid-afternoon, night prayer, office Readings) rarely had a place in the busy lives of most of us.  During the closure of our churches and the attendant restrictions on pastoral ministry, this was a golden time for most priests to return to the fervent praying of the Divine Office. It is hoped that after such an experience of the taste for prayer we will not quickly relapse to the old regime of more work and less prayer. No priest would dispute the fact that quality and fruitful pastoral ministry is nourished by a strong prayer life and the latter is not possible without the wasting of precious time before the Lord. It is true to say that the evangelizer must first of all have encountered the risen Lord to be credible as a witness of the good news.

 Besides the opportunity for developing our prayer lives as priests, the pandemic, especially during the period of the restrictions on public worship and pastoral engagements, also forced us to rediscover the gift of one another and the value of community life. In normal time, some of our presbyteries only served as sleeping quarters for most priests. Their pastoral engagements, so it was believed, often took them away from community meals, prayer, and recreation. Now that there were no pastoral engagements, people had no more excuses to make for being constantly absent from community exercises.

The saying that necessity is the mother of invention became very true in the wake of the closure of our churches and the restriction on social gathering which affected public worship. The need to reach out to the flock by all means and to ensure that none is lost by the time we returned to public worship was a matter of grave concern for most pastors. This led to an unprecedented discovery of hidden talents in the use of the various opportunities that the new information technology provided for social communication. Masses and the Service of the Word on radio (thanks to the readily availability of the FM Stations in almost every village) on  the internet (through the so-called life streaming) became the order of the day. Some pastors learned to make use of these avenues to keep in touch with their flock and to provide for their spiritual needs. The down side, of course, of the use of the social media as mentioned earlier is the cost element (cf radio and television charges were quite high beyond the incomes of most parishes. Some parishes had to discontinue the use of the radio or had to limit the Sunday mass to just the service of the Word for reasons of cost).

The pandemic has helped us to rediscover in a creative way the use of the new information and communication technologies (ICT) for evangelization. The cost of some of these technologies is still a big challenge although some are relatively cheaper and readily available for those who care to make use of them. However, a word of caution needs be sounded here, less in our enthusiasm we shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing an unregulated use of these social media by people who do so in the name of the Church but who lack the requisite competence and authority. I have seen even seminarians posting some catechetical material and reflections on YouTube and wonder whether they have first of all had their material checked and certified by their professors. If we are not careful, an unregulated use of the social media can lead to the multiplication of errors and harmful material.

1. THE MESSAGE OF FRATELLI TUTTI

Fratelli Tutti (All brothers and Sisters) is an Encyclical letter of the Holy Father, Pope Francis on what he called Fraternity and Social Friendship, addressed to the Church and, of course, to all men and women of good will. According to the Holy Father this letter is meant to inspire in us a new vison of fraternity and social friendship in the face of present day attempts to eliminate or ignore others (cf FT 6).  The pope made it clear that his letter is inspired by the life and teaching of St Francis of Assisi, the poor friar, who loved everything and everyone.  St Francis of Assisi taught his brothers to practice a love “that transcends the barriers of geography and distance and declared blessed all those who love their brother as much when he is far away from him as when he is with him”.( FT 1)

What is the core message of this letter? Simply put, it teaches that fraternal love has a universal scope; it is love that is open to every man and woman without exception. I intend to unpack this message in two stages; In the first instance, I will deal with what the Holy Father calls the dark clouds that hang over a world that is closed to itself. According to the Pope, these dark clouds are certain behaviors in our world  today that hinder and prevent the development and practice of fraternal love among human beings (FT 9).

In the second instance, I will then deal with the solution that the pope proposes as a remedy to counter the dark clouds hanging over our world. The message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is this remedy which  calls for a love that is open to every man and woman without exception. I will conclude with a reflection on the relevance of the message of FT for the effective evangelization of our province.

The Dark Clouds over our world.

Cloud 1. “as we become ever more globalised, it makes us neighbours but does not make us brothers/sisters”. (FT 12 ). This is a profound observation by the Holy Father.

With our globalised world and the coming of ICT we have destroyed distance and time; people are closer to one another now than before by the click of a bottom. However, this closeness has not necessarily generated fraternity or brotherhood; There is a lack of consideration for one another and respect for each other’s dignity.

What we are witnessing today in many places in our world and society is the phenomenon of community without communion.

-In the big cities, people could careless who is their next-door neighbour or who lives down the road; they are just neighbours but not brothers and sisters. This dark cloud (of just being neighbours) seems to be hanging over some of our priestly communities, our religious communities, our parish communities and our families. In most of these contexts we simply live a life of community without communion. In some of our presbyteries, as I noted earlier, the only thing the members share is the common roof, they hardly interact. In some of our religious communities, the story may not be different. Years ago, I read story about a religious community of two Sisters living in the same house and their only mode of communication was through pieces of paper pushed under each other’s door whenever they wanted to give a message. Today it will be done by text messaging/whatsapp. In our parishes, it is not uncommon to have two people from the same neighbourhood worshipping at the same parish church without ever getting to know one another or exchanging a word. We are ever so close to one another but never before have we felt so out of touch with one another, humanly speaking.

 Cloud 2. “Reason alone cannot establish fraternity”, i.e. just by grasping the idea that all men are equal or have a worth does not translate into fraternal love.

Our world is replete with knowledge and theories about the dignity of every human being (cf. United Nations Convention on Human Rights). However, this does not easily lead to treating one another as brothers and sisters.

The transition from such a conceptual understanding of the dignity of the human being to fraternal love has a divine origin, i.e. it is informed and infused by God the Father who loved us first and taught us through Christ (Son) what fraternity means (cf CV 19). Therefore, it is not automatic to be brothers or sisters to one another; it must be born out of a personal and conscious choice motivated by a supernatural vision or command. “Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends” Cf Jn 15,12).  The road to  hell is paved by good intentions.!

Cloud 3 “There is a loss of historical consciousness”.(FT 13) In other words, people are abandoning what has been tried and tested and served society and people very well for ages. The danger stems from people ignoring the value of history/ the past, rejecting the experience of the elders and looking down on the past. The result is crass individualism, a false sense of freedom, based on the principle that nobody should tell me what I should do. This does not build fraternity but rather promotes egotistic mentality that is self-referential.

At the level of the Church, the traditional sources of revelation are under  constant scrutiny and attack. Some people see the Tradition of the Church as obsolete, out of mode, forgetting that it has served society well for over two thousand years. Others see the Bible as antiquarian, forgetting the wisdom that it provided and the civilization that it nurtured for so many centuries. For some still, the Church’s authority or any form of authority, for that matter, is oppressive and obstructive to personal freedom, personal opinion, forgetting the moral stability that it guaranteed down the centuries.

Today the wisdom of the elders is spurned or ridiculed. People complain a lot about the lack of respect of the elderly by the young, the lack of respect of parents by their children. Most young people think their parents are stupid; But many parents know their children are stupid.’

This mentality seems to be on the rise even within the Church; when you think of the severe criticism that the Holy Father suffers every now and then from highly placed Church officials, who think they know better or are more endowed intellectually than the pope.

There is a useful theological distinction between charism and office. While the latter belongs to the magisterium the former is properly that of the theologian whose role it is to serve the office bearer who has the mandate to communicate the divine message (relying on the grace of the office).

Once again, this is another block to fraternal love in our world.

Cloud 4  “We live in a throwaway world /culture”( cf FT 18)

Pope Francis draws attention to the lack of care by the political and economic order for the vulnerable, the weak and especially the elderly. According the Holy Father “persons are no longer seen as a paramount value to be cared for and respected, especially when they are poor and disabled, when they are ‘not yet useful (in the case of the unborn) or when they are no longer useful and needed (in the case of the elderly). What is thrown away is not only food, and disposable objects but often human beings too.

At a more personal level, we may need to reflect on how this throwaway mentality has caught up with us. Among other things that we throw away so easily, the Holy Father mentions food; how do we treat food and drink after we have had our fill, mindful of the many that may be going to bed every now and then on empty stomachs. Are we careful to avoid wastage in our homes?

The throwaway culture is also affecting the way and manner that we treat our fellow human beings. One category of people we easily discard without realising is the elderly, who are forced by age and ill-health to remain in the shadows of our homes. There is a missing link in our pastoral planning in our parishes as in most cases there is no provision made for the pastoral care of the elderly. I am not aware of any special pastoral care programmes, specially designed and tailored for the elderly in the manner that we have for the youth, young adults, women, the vulnerable, the sick etc.

Without admitting the fact, the absence of any conscious effort to integrate the elderly in our pastoral programmes is a clear sign of the throwaway culture that has caught up with us, leading us to buy into the mentality of regarding the elderly as no longer useful or needed.

Another category of disposable human beings is the unborn child who is discarded through abortion. The statistics on abortion in our country is very alarming. It is reported that in 2020, a total of 119,623 abortions were recorded in the country; approximately 10,000 abortions per month. You may need to make allowance for those that are not recorded.

Whether it is in the case of the elderly or the unborn child, we see very clearly that the practice of fraternal love leaves much to be desired.

Dark Cloud 5. “No one can be saved alone; we can only be saved together”.(FT 32)

The current pandemic has made this very evident.  The pain, uncertainty, fear and the realization of our own limitation, brought by the pandemic have only made it all the more urgent that we need to rethink our style of life, our relationships with one another and the meaning of our existence.

Indeed, the Covid-19 experience has taught us a hard lesson that we cannot be saved alone but together with others.

-we can no longer live as if we are fully in charge and in control of our own lives. The Covid-19 pandemic has been no respecter of persons, attacking both rich and poor. In this country we have lost both prominent men and women and ordinary citizens.

-we cannot live independently of others.  The pandemic has shown that I owe my safety not only to God (the Creator) but also to the responsible conduct of my brothers/sisters, the community, the larger society and to the nation as a whole. Whatever others do, affect me directly or indirectly and vice versa. This is the reason why the Church encourages her faithful to consider the taking of the vaccine against Covid-19  as act of charity towards the neighbour, the community and the country.

Dark Cloud 6. Migration and human mobility pose a challenge to fraternity and social friendship when strangers are seen as a threat and a danger to society. (cf FT 37)

From a biblical point of view, the stranger, the widow and the orphan were privileged categories of people in the eyes of God. He warned the people of Israel that if any of these suffer unwarranted persecution and discrimination and they cried to him he would act on their behalf. (Cf Exod 22,21-22). We need not look far when it comes to dealing with the resident alien in our midst. How do we treat the so-called strangers, settlers and foreigners in our midst?

Beyond the level of the general society, this dark cloud is also hanging over the Church.

-how do we treat and relate to the ex-patriate missionaries in our local Churches?- how do we treat and handle non indigenes (pastors and Christians) in their parishes of ministry or residence. This is particularly important in our province where many people/Christians find themselves outside their home towns and parishes for motives of work and business (a good number of the Christian population in the Damongo, Tamale and Yendi are non-indigenes).

One worrying phenomenon that is on the rise in the Church, witnessed even at the universal level, is the unwillingness by some local populations to accept non-indigenous appointed or elected church leaders (cf. the case of bishops who were rejected and denied possession of their episcopal Sees because they are not sons of the soil. There are also instances where some parishes do not easily accept non-indigene priests as parish priests and by default do not equally accept a non-indigene as a parish council chairperson). Such a conduct stands in the way of promoting a culture of universal fraternity and social friendship that the Holy Father is calling for in Fratelli Tutti and constitutes a dark cloud over our world and the Church.

Dark Cloud 7.  The challenge to authentic communication.

According to the Holy Father, “the right to privacy now scarcely exists” (FT 42).

Everything has become a kind of spectacle, to be examined, to be inspected and people’s lives are now under constant surveillance. (the video clip of the torture of a child by a mother making the rounds, the story of the photo journalist who won an award with a picture he took of a starving child in front of an expectant vulture, video clips of accident scenes and even of the dead).

There is now what is called the dictatorship of the media especially the digital media; According to Pope Francis “Digital connectivity is not enough to build bridges nor to unite people” (FT 43). Rather it often exposes people to the risk of addiction (compulsive behaviour, cf people who hang on their phones no matter where they are, when the phone rings or a beeps, everything must stop even in the middle of a sentence; it does not matter who is sitting right before them, he or she is secondary

Secondly, it exposes people to the risk of isolation (it makes people live in a virtual world, withdrawn into their corner and easily avoid those they don’t want to see or speak to).

Finally, it leads to a gradual loss of contact with the concrete reality ( being in touch with people of flesh and blood).

The pope talks about the “shameless social aggression” that is perpetrated by means of the social media. Through this means people can now say things boldly, using the crudest form and most foul language without any compunction or charity (because they do not have the privilege of looking the victim (a brother or a sister with dignity and worth) in the face (cf. the comments that usually follow some posts with greatest disrespect and under pseudonyms).

The resultant effect of all this is the blocking of the development of authentic interpersonal relationship which is essential for fraternity and social friendship.

According to Pope Francis; “True wisdom demands an encounter with reality, not the created world of the digital sphere. The ability to sit down and listen to others, typical of every authentic interpersonal encounter is paradigmatic of people who welcome others, make time for others in their lives. This is fraternity and it is a trait of the authentic pastor.

The Holy Father very pointedly observes that “today’s world is largely a deaf world. Silence and careful listening have disappeared and replaced by a frenzy of text-messaging, whatsapping. Silence and careful listening are a gem of sage human communication and they are at risk.

Especially for those of us who are pastors, our ability to sit down and listen patiently and carefully to our flock is at serious risk and will greatly undermine our pastoral work if nothing is done. We will be mere functionaries who are constantly moved by the digital gadgets.

Conclusion; Amidst these dark clouds and threats to universal fraternity, is there any hope that we can weather the storms that these clouds threaten to release on our world and destroy our fraternity and social friendship?

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

I now turn my attention to the solution that pope proposes as a remedy to counter the dark clouds hanging over our world, namely the lessons from the parable of the Good Samaritan which calls for a love that is open to every man and woman without exception.

First consideration; The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches that; “love does not care if a brother or sister in need comes from one place or another” (FT 62). This love knows no barriers of geography or distance.  The only criterion is that a brother or a sister is in need ( cf challenge of ethnicity, family and friends)

Second consideration; The parable teaches us that in life here are only two kinds of people, namely those who care for someone who is hurting and those who pass by. All distinctions and labels of status, gender, tribe, religion; priests, religious or lay persons, pale into insignificance. It is precisely these two kinds of people, those who cared for others and those who passed by a needy brother or a sister who will be called to answer before the judgment seat of God as narrated in Mt 25. I was hungry, thirsty, sick, in prison, stranger……

Third consideration; This type of love, as exhibited by the Good Samaritan, requires more than just material means. It demands the willingness to expend our time. The Samaritan traveller certainly had his own plans for the day, his own pressing needs and commitments yet was able to put all these aside when he was confronted with someone in need (cf FT 63). Time is something that we of today would not easily give away without a fight. There are some people who will readily give away their money and other resources but don’t ask them for their time. Spending time for the sake of others is closely linked with the gift of oneself to another.

Finally, the parable teaches us that this type of love by nature is provocative. Given the long-standing historical enmity between Jews and Samaritans, a Samaritan stopping to show mercy and love to his Jewish enemy is anything but provocative.  It is certainly a strange feeling when you are able to act with love and compassion towards someone you know who does not like you or hates you, but it is clearly a provocative gesture in a world that believes in the blind pursuit of revenge, in the practice of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Matt 5,38).

Cardinal Pell in his Prison Journal speaks about the contribution that the Christian religion makes to the world in the form of the command to love the enemy and to pray for those who hate us.  According to him, our world risks becoming a dark place of hatred and violence, if Christianity loses its influence and impact and our society becomes more and more +secularized.

This parable of the Good Samaritan calls on us (Christians) to expand our frontiers of love, to give a universal dimension to our vocation to love beyond our own borders, to transcend all prejudices, whether historical, cultural or born out of personal interests.

 And this brings me finally to the theme of evangelization;

Towards Effective Evangelization of our Province

In the light of all that has been said, working towards an effective evangelization anywhere but more in particular of our ecclesiastical province, with its numerous challenges and opportunities, must begin with the basic conviction that evangelization starts above all with a personal conversion of heart towards God and our neighbour. This is where the relevance of the message of Fratelli Tutti for our theme comes into play; the conversion of our human hearts to love without borders and without exception!

We mention earlier on that the message of Fratelli Tutti is that fraternal love has a universal scope, is love that is open to every man and woman without exception. Such a love when fully practiced is already fundamentally a form of evangelization. However, as we know, this does not come about automatically. It needs a certain divine impetus and that is why Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI could argue that “fraternity has a divine origin, i.e. it is informed and infused by God the Father who loved us first and taught us through Christ (Son) what fraternity means” ( Caritas in Veritate V 19).

Consequently, when our love for a brother or a sister is informed and infused by God the Father who loved us first, we are already on the path of evangelization, beginning with ourselves and leading eventually to a number of things;

-the expansion of our frontiers of love (often limited and focussed on ourselves, our family and friends and those of our ethnic groups),

– to a love beyond our own borders (our towns and villages, our parishes, our dioceses, provinces, political parties, our associations and groups etc).

– to transcending all prejudices, whether historical prejudices(old grudges between peoples that linger on), cultural prejudices (feelings of inferiority or superiority)or born out of personal interests( some are  perceived as enemies or  a threat to our welfare and security and so must be fought and eliminated).

Once this foundation (of personal conversion) has been laid, where we have been taught through Christ what fraternal love means, the rest of the task of evangelization becomes a matter of pastoral strategies, to rise to the challenges posed by the current situation of the pandemic and to take advantage of some of the opportunities for a more effective evangelization offered by the same pandemic.

I have already drawn attention to some of these earlier on in my presentation. By way of conclusion, I wish to broadly mention them once again;

1. The Information and Communication Technologies offer us a number of possibilities for improved social communication as a tool for evangelization. Each of these possibilities must be evaluated in the light of what is feasible, practical and affordable.
2. Learning to Be before seeking to Do. The Pandemic has exposed the weakness of a priestly life that is driven more by action than by prayer and reflection.
3. A formidable Lay spirituality is a prerequisite for a sustainable evangelization. A laity that is spoon-fed spiritually is at risk of sinking when such support system fails or is not readily available.
4. Teppcon, as pastoral organ, would need retooling and a renewed commitment by her members inspired by the spirit of Fratelli Tutti which calls for a love that has a universal scope or more appropriately a love that has a provincial scope.
5. Finally, and most importantly, Prayer should inform everything we do and intend to do. One of the thematic nuclei for the consultation of the people of God for a synodal Church talks about the relevance of prayer and liturgical celebration for reaching important decisions in the Church. We may need to take this more seriously as a Church and as ecclesial bodies. Knowledge and technical expertise alone are not enough. We need the wisdom of God that comes as a gift through prayer and openness to the Spirit.