African Catholic church a vibrant force for change: strengthened ties with U.S. Catholics aid attention to pressing problems

National Catholic Reporter, July 18, 2003 by Arthur Jones

In the early 1990s, Ricard, at that time an auxiliary bishop in Baltimore, "as an African-American priest and bishop began to develop an interest in Africa." His travels took him to Togo in West Africa and to South Africa.

Subsequently, in six years a Catholic Relief Services board chairman he made a dozen African trips and "became aware of the many pastoral needs that were not being met," and that Africa's needs, "always immense, have gotten even more acute." He raised Africa's profile within the bishops' conference by involving them in pressing for African debt relief.

Two years ago Africa became part of the bishops' International Policy Committee agenda, and in 2001 the committee released "A Call to Solidarity with Africa." Ricard is now International Policy Committee chair, and promises to keep Africa on the front burner. He counts as an ally Perry, who joined the conference in 2000 as an African affairs policy adviser. Ricard continues to advance collaboration between the bishops' conference and CRS.

"Sadly," said Ricard, the 35-million-person African-American community, including 2 million black U.S. Catholics, "are grossly negligent" in their response to the needs of Africa, and I would think them a natural constituency."

But black Catholics are raising Africa's profile, he said. The recent National Black Catholics Congress in Chicago for the first time invited an African bishop, Bishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of Ghana, as a speaker.

Perry, the bishops' foreign policy adviser for African affairs in the Secretariat for Social Development and World Peace, is a man constantly on the road around the United States, giving Africa-linked homilies and talks. He said the bishops' statement on Africa has produced "a surprisingly strong if slow groundswell around the country."

That document bluntly laid out the "urgency" and "deep concern" in the need for Africa and its allies to tackle poverty, disease, debt burdens, conflicts, insecurity, and internal refugee calamities.

CRS similarly has staffers in the United States organizing local groups, explaining Africa to American Catholics. (In a related story, Kevin Hartigan, CRS regional director for Central Africa who has spent 11 years in Africa, provides insights in the difficulties close up.)

At the same time, the solidarity call alerted American Catholics to the sign of energetic hope that the Catholic church has become in many African nations.

Notre Dame's Institute for Church Life, in conjunction with Nigerian Catholic church institutions, will hold the first session of a two-part conference Sept. 21-24 to "battle the prevalent world cynicism about Africa," and to raise Africa's profile in the U.S. church, and to develop follow-through with African churches. The second session is in Nigeria, Jan. 4-11.

This fall, the same Catholic leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Rwanda who brought about the reconciliation Mass will be in Washington meeting with key policymakers and lobbyists from the bishops' conference and CRS to plan the strategy.