 |
| H.E. Cardinal Berhaneyesus , Chairman of AMECEA |
Speaking in an interview with Elise Harris of CNA/EWTN, H.E. Berhaneyesus D.Cardinal Souraphiel said that protecting the African values of life and love “is of utmost importance to the African Bishops and we will speak about them more I feel.”
Cardinal Berhaneyesus recalled how when Benedict XVI visited Africa in 2011, the Pontiff said that the African continent has “their own values, you are in fact the spiritual lung of the world because you have traditional values.”
West imposing secular values on Africa in exchange for aid emerged as a theme from the continent's bishops, as the Synod on the family kicks off its first week.
“From press conferences to individual interviews, multiple prelates voiced concern over what Pope Francis has termed “ideological colonization,” in which Western nations have made the acceptance of legislature favoring gay rights and “marriage” contingent on receiving financial aid.
“It's one thing that the African bishops are very, very conscious of,” Cardinal Wilfred Napier of South Africa told journalists Oct. 7.
“What we are talking about is when countries are told unless you pass certain legislation, you're not going to get aid from the governments or aid agencies,” he said, pointing to the danger of “political colonization” being replaced “by a different kind of colonization.”
This year's Synod on the Family, which runs from Oct. 4-25, is the second and larger of two such gatherings to take place in the course of a year. Like its 2014 precursor, the focus of the 2015 Synod of Bishops will be the family, this time with the theme: “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the modern world.”
While Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu and president of the Ugandan Episcopal Conference, in an Oct. 8 interview with CNA, called the act “criminal,” and said ideologies must never be attached to receiving aid, which is meant to save lives.
“The issue of homosexuality should not be linked with saying ‘if you don’t accept this we won’t help you,’ that is criminal, I call it criminal,” he said.
“Aid should not be linked with ideological acceptance or rejection. Aid is to save human life. If you link it to ideology it becomes contradictory...it is self-defeating.”
Human beings must be helped without any conditions attached, Archbishop Odama said, adding that the survival of human life “is paramount,” and that the family exists precisely to promote human life.
“Any other society, any other groups elsewhere should exist to promote life and protect life, so if it intends to limit the life to be protected or to be accepted to a certain way of thinking then we runs short,” he said. “So any issue against human life is an issue against humanity in general.”
Source: CNA/EWTN and AMECEA Online News