Nairobi, 09 August, 2024 / 11:27 pm (ACI Africa).
For years, the Church in Africa longed to have a platform that could amplify her voice, an ex officio of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) has said and applauded the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) for realizing the longing five years ago with the establishment of the Association for Catholic Information in Africa (ACI Africa).
In his keynote address at ACI Africa’s 5th anniversary on Friday, August 9, Bishop Emmanuel Adetoyese Badejo lauded the Nairobi-based continental news service for distinguishing itself in giving visibility to the activities of the Church in Africa.
Bishop Badejo, who serves as the President of the Pan African Episcopal Committee for Social Communication (CEPACS), the committee that represents SECAM in the communication apostolate of the Church in Africa, said, “By the time ACI Africa was launched, the Church in Africa had longed for a news platform that could realize SECAM’s vision articulated during the establishment of CEPACS in 1973.”
“That vision, updated at the 1994 Synod of Bishops for Africa in 1994, demanded that the Church in Africa should coordinate its media activity, pursue organic pastoral solidarity and project the identity and spirit of the Church as Family of God,” he said during the anniversary celebration at JJ McCarthy Centre of the Assumption Sisters of Nairobi (ASN).
The Local Ordinary of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Oyo said that for many years, the Church in Africa “desired media entities which would support its evangelization mission, project its pastoral profile as Family of God, and promote a healthy synodal exchange in the Church all over the continent while ‘helping Africa to tell her own story’ to the world.”
“I congratulate EWTN and all its visionaries who by establishing ACI Africa, acknowledged the importance of the testimony and pastoral experience of the Church in Africa and so, invested commendably in amplifying the voice of the Church here,” Bishop Badejo said.
He went on to say that the growth of the Catholic Church in Africa has been manifested in the continent’s contribution to the ongoing process of the Synod on Synodality.
Also manifest is Africa’s witness to the sanctity of life and the sacrament of marriage, Bishop Badejo said, adding that the Church in Africa has brought cherished African values of solidarity and the joy of living to the entire world.
-www.aciafrica.org
