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| Group Photo of the participants |
Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) in collaboration with the Missio Aachen (Germany) have organized a theological symposium to discuss the pastoral challenges and opportunities of evangelization in Tanzania at Mbagala Spiritual centre in Dar es Salaam from September 8-9; 2014.
The symposium brought together five participants from Missio Germany; these included Peter Hans Hecking, Prof. Vellguth Klaus Michael Meyer, Frank Kraus and Susanna Kerstin-kuhn. Other delegates included Bishop Almachius Rweyongeza of the Diocese Kayanga who is the Chairman of the TEC Theological Commission, Bishops Methodius Kilaini, An Auxiliary Bishop of Bukoba, directors and teachers of catechetical colleges in the country, priests who engage in pastoral activities of small Christian communities and experts in theology from Catholic universities in the country.
Among other things, the participants discussed in detail the priorities that needed to be considered in order to bring about the Deeper evangelization, including families apostolate, ongoing formation for young people, other agents in evangelization like religious and laity, ongoing formation of the clergy, establishing and strengthening a Small Christian communities, protecting the poor and the oppressed of the society, the Integral development, justice and peace, ecumenism and inter religious dialogue.
Some of the challenges of evangelization mentioned were; lack of deeper knowledge on Christianity to some of the Christian faithful and lack of proper differentiation of Christian denominations and the issue of globalization especially among the youth age group.
Citing some of the challenges of evangelization at the diocesan level, Bishop Rweyongeza explained that, in his diocese, among the many challenges there is this one of laziness of attending the Sunday’s liturgy among the faithful and that many of the baptized catholic have not received the sacrament of confirmation. Polygamy was mentioned to be another issue and cohabitation, divorce and single parent are some of the major problem to be tackled.
Some leaders of small communities are a family with more than one wife (polygamy), many parents are not married, many families affected by divorce, single-parent upbringing.
Bishop Rweyongeza emphasized that the Church has to invest on family and Small Christian Communities; this is because without strong families the Catholic Church is unlikely to be a One, Holy and Apostolic.
Along with helping to improve the activity of evangelization in-depth, focused Missio use the experience of the Catholic Church in Tanzania for the promotion of the mission on Sunday October 20, 2015.
SOURCE: By Sarah Pelaji, Kiongozi Newspaper, TEC Communications Office,