Contact with African enriches Church in Europe, Pope says
February 16, 2012
The Church in Europe can be enriched by contacts with Catholicism in Africa, “because of the hope and joy with which ecclesial communities in Africa live and communicate their faith,” Pope Benedict XVI remarked during a February 16 audience with bishops from both continents.
The Pope spoke to a group of about 70 bishops participating in a symposium jointly organized by the European Council of Episcopal Conferences (CCEE) and the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. The event was organized to help provide for a unified approach to evangelization.
Pope Benedict observed that on both continents, Church leaders must combat a popular indifference to religious issues that “causes many people to live as if God did not exist, or make do with a vague religiosity incapable of measuring up against the question of truth or the requirement to be coherent.”
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Further information:
- Pope: discourse to African and European Bishops gathered for Symposium (Vatican Radio)
- Pastoral Communion and Cooperation between Africa and Europe (VIS)
- Africa-Europe: new evangelization, communion and pastoral collaboration (Vatican Radio)
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