Church News

The Synod that opened in the Vatican in the sixteenth General Assembly on October 3, 2023, closed its doors with the Eucharistic celebration on Sunday, October 29, 2023. All the reflections, in prayer, were presented this Saturday, October 28, 2023 in the form of a report of more than forty pages. We briefly suggest the three parts of said report: Listening to all, starting with victims of abuse, Laity and families and formation.

Let us reread the three proposed readings in light of God's attention to our miserable lives. Let us recall that the first reading is located in what is called the Code of the Covenant (Ex 20:22-23:19). It is a code of laws written from the ten commandments of Moses. If the latter delivered the laws to nomadic Israel (Ex 20:1-17), the Code of the Covenant is the work of a sedentary Israel who concretizes the ten commandments in daily life. It is here that Israel insists on the respect and dignity of human life. On the day of the renewal of the Covenant in Shechem, the twelve tribes reconfirmed their faith in these laws (Josh 8:30).

After the opening of the pastoral year by Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, Archbishop of Bangui, the FRAMICCOR (Missionary Fraternity of Congolese Consecrated People in the Central African Republic) had a day of recollection to faithfully embark on the pastoral year 2023-2023.

PG: In this month of October, the Pope invites us to pray "for the Church, so that it may adopt listening and dialogue as a way of life at all levels, allowing itself to be guided by the power of the Holy Spirit towards the peripheries of the world... The Mission is at the heart of the Church," affirms Pope Francis, explaining that it is a synodal dynamic that "can only be carried by the missionary vocation, that is, the response to Jesus' command to proclaim the Gospel."

Born in 1952, Monsignor Marie Daniel Dadiet was ordained a priest in 1979 at the age of 27. Nineteen years later, in 1998 at the age of 46, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Korhogo where he served for 4 years. He took over the diocese of Katiola on May 12, 2002 for only two years.

On Tuesday, September 17, 2023, Pope Francis calls on each faithful to identify a person who has hurt them and ask the Lord for the strength to forgive them. “Forgiveness is the oxygen that purifies the air polluted by hatred” (Matthew 18:21–35).

From September 24 to 29, 2023, the seminarians of the Saint Paul Middle Seminary of Wango spent the time of retreat to better start the school year 2023-2024. It is under the theme: Building one's vocation. Which retreat was led by Father Jean-Marie KONDE, priest of the archdiocese of Kinshasa on a Fidei donum mission in Bangui and vicar at the Cathedral of Bangui.

We offer you the homily given by Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga at the Mass of the pastoral return on Sunday, September 24, 2023 at the Notre Dame de Fatima parish in Bangui. It was on the same occasion that two deacons and two priests were ordained.

It is true that each particular Church is the Church of Christ in its communion with the other Churches. Missionary cooperation is "an instrument in the hands of the Bishop to ensure the missionary mandate of Christ... of education in the universal missionary spirit and of inter-ecclesial communion in the service of the proclamation of the Gospel" (Benedict XVI, Address to the PMS, 2008). It is a "service" called "missionary" charged with the "universal mission" (Cf. canons 782-791).

In a message addressed to the families of the missing victims, to the population of the city of Lisala and to people of good will, Monsignor José-Bernard Likolo Bokal'Etumba, Bishop of Lisala and Apostolic Administrator of Molegbe, expressed from Kinshasa his paternal closeness with great sadness for the death of the 17 people, victims of the torrential rain that fell on the city of Lisala from the evening of the 16th to the morning of the 17th of September of the current year...