‘Steer clear’ of triumphalism, Belgian cardinal tells African bishops

November 13, 2015

In an interview with La Stampa’s Vatican Insider, Cardinal Godfried Danneels directed pointed words to bishops in Africa.

Advising “everyone to steer clear of all forms of triumphalism and claims to self-sufficiency,” the retired archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels said:

Some African bishops tell us: you are pagans. You wiped everything out. But I remember Belgium being full of vocations, there were huge seminaries and novitiates being built up until the 60s. Christian families did everything they could to give their children a sense of belonging in the Church.

But we started seeing the faith dwindling in boys and girls aged 17-20. This wounded them it caused great suffering. Is it right to say it was their fault and that the parents were not good Christians? No, that’s not the case. The act of becoming Christians and persevering in the faith remains a mystery and is not the result of some educational or sociological mechanism. It seems to me that all the talk about “robust” Churches that should save the rest of Catholicism, is for the purpose of ecclesiastical politics. The abstractness of it is striking.

Cardian Danneels added:

European Churches have been overrun by the effects of secularization that have also led to rising individualism. But this very individualism could reach Africa sooner or later: that phenomenon that sees people thinking of themselves as individuals rather than as members of a group, a community, or a mass. It is possible that the crisis we have had will spread there too, with all that this entails. Africans may also experience a situation similar to ours. Then they might call us up to see how we dealt with it. To get some useful tips.

 

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Further information:

• Church reform and Francis’ “apostolic sufferings” (Vatican Insider)