Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
In a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) held in Kenya’s capital Nairobi at Donum Dei Roussel House, the president of SECAM Phillip Nakellentuba Cardinal Ouedraogo called on all members to personalize the symposium for enhanced growth of the Church in Africa and Madagascar.
“I invite you my brothers during this meeting to think of ways that will enable members of the Symposium to own and support SECAM so that it will be better placed to assume its responsibility in the Church and society,” Cardinal Ouedraogo said during his opening remarks to the ten participants who were present for the emergency meeting of the standing committee on Thursday, March 5.
He reminded the standing Committee Members about some of the deliberations made during last year’s (2019) SECAM Plenary Assembly held at Munyoyo in Uganda’s capital Kampala which were to be implemented for the Symposium to move forward.
“You recall that in Kampala, we resolved to exhibit the spirit of Church-Family-of-God everywhere in Africa and Madagascar, to make the SECAM Golden Jubilee a springboard for profound evangelization on the continent and its Islands, to step up our financial responsibility to SECAM (and) publish the Kampala document by the end of 2019,” Cardinal Ouedraogo of Burkina Faso’s Ouagadougou Archdiocese recounted.
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| SECAM Secretaries and Members of Standing Committee. Photo taken on March, 5 2020 in Nairobi Donum-Dei |
He explained further that reminder letters had been sent to all regional conferences to encourage dioceses and conferences who had not cleared their financial debts to act and commit themselves as “part of efforts to respond to the call for self-reliance and a demonstration of the spirit of Church-Family-of –God.”
“As an effort to identify with and make sacrifices for SECAM, we requested for an extraordinary financial contribution to SECAM in place of SECAM day collection for 2020. Each Local Ordinary was to designate Church communities where appeal for funds for SECAM would be organized,” recalled the SECAM’s president who is now 75-year old.
Speaking on behalf of AMECEA Chairman, Rt. Rev. Charles Kasonde, the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) which is one of the regional conferences that form SECAM Fr. Anthony Makunde who is the Secretary General, addressed the standing committee members and highlighted some of the activities and way forward for the AMECEA secretariat.
“Currently we are making a review of our strategic plan which started in 2014 and is supposed to go up to 2024. We want to include the resolutions of the AMECEA plenary assembly which took place in Addis Ababa (2018) and the ones for SECAM plenary assembly that took place in Kampala (2019) so that together we may move as a Church in Africa,” Fr. Makunde explained.
He recalled the key focus areas of the two plenary assemblies and the intent of AMECEA secretariat.
“The Addis Ababa Plenary Assembly insisted on reviving the spirit of solidarity and collegiality while the Kampala SECAM assembly insisted on theme of the Church in Africa as a family. “So, we want to bring together the two concepts which complement each other so that we may be working as one continent although in different regions,” the AMECEA Secretary General continued.
He also disclosed some areas of focus that may eventually form the theme of the next AMECEA Plenary Assembly saying, “The October (2019) Executive Board meeting for AMECEA, resolved to meditate and to study more on the theme of environment in line with Laudato Si’ so that the coming plenary assembly which will be in Tanzania 2022, will have Laudato Si’ and the care of mother earth as the main theme.”
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| President of SECAM His Eminence Philippe Cardinal Ouedraaogo |
“I have already recommended to my brother the SECAM Secretary General that we bring together the Secretaries General who remind the Bishops in their plenary assemblies on the need to comply with the requirements of the associations,” he disclosed.
The two-day meeting brought together Secretaries and members of the new Standing Committee of SECAM including, Fr. Jean Germain Rajoelison, first Deputy Secretary General, Justice and Peace Commission, Fr. Terwase Henry Akaabiam, Secretary General, Bishop Marcel Maduka Basanguka of DR Congo, Bishop John Macwilliam of Algeria, Archbishop Phillip Arnold Subira Anyolo, President of the Kenyan Bishops Conference, Bishop Anton Sipuka of South Africa and first Vice President of SECAM, Bishop Lucio A. Muandula of Mozambique and second Vice President of SECAM, Bishop Emmanuel Adetoyese Badejo of Nigeria and President of Pan-African Episcopal Committee for Social Communications (CEPACS), Fr. Raphael Simbine Junior, second deputy Secretary General, Evangelization Commission and Cardinal Phillip Ouedraogo, President of SECAM.