One of the inherent weaknesses of this evangelisation process was the imposition of Western ways of believing and thinking on the African people of God.

However, since every church is its own missionary, it cannot live its faith by proxy (cf. Ad Gentes, Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church, § 22).

This is why Saint Pope Paul VI, during his trip to Kampala in July 1969, made this call: "Africans, be your own missionaries."

Fifty-five years later, Paul VI's exhortation is even more relevant today: to evangelise Africa by and for Africans. This requires a true conversion to mission.

Converting to mission

At the level of each local church, we must assess to what extent our practices are truly missionary and revise them accordingly.

Too often, the tendency of most African bishops is to perpetuate the status quo, which does not encourage a shift from a logic of mere reproduction to one of innovation and creativity.

This also explains the pastoral ineffectiveness of the theology of inculturation. A community that is overly concerned with its image will inevitably lose its dynamism.

"I do not want a church preoccupied with being the center, which ends up trapped in a web of obsessions and procedures," says Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium, § 49).

"At the level of each local church, we must assess to what extent our practices are truly missionary and revise them accordingly."

Each baptized person must renew their understanding of mission. It is not just about traveling to the ends of the earth. Everyone is a missionary wherever they are.

In this sense, Pope Francis speaks of the "missionary disciple." It is important to deepen the Pauline principle that one cannot be a disciple of Christ without being a missionary (cf. 1 Cor 9:16).

Encounter and testimony

Mission, therefore, is not limited to a physical sending forth or a formal proclamation of the Gospel. It is a testimony of life, a meeting that requires dialogue and respect for others and their culture.

"Every true and profound encounter involves an intercommunication for the benefit and gift of both parties.

The evangeliser receives as much as they give, not only on a human level but also in terms of understanding the Good News," the late Archbishop Isidore de Souza of Cotonou said in his article "What If Africa Evangelised Europe?" (In Savanes-Forêts, No. 12, 1977).

The dynamics of mission are rooted in God, who is love. He invites us to bear witness to His love for the peoples of Africa by proclaiming the Good News of salvation.

• First published in La Croix
• Father Serge Bidouzo is a priest of the Archdiocese of Cotonou (Benin) and the former director of La Croix du Bénin (not affiliated with La Croix International).

Francis says it is essential that the Pontifical Urban University keeps its centuries-old focus on preparing missionaries who come from and go out to the world and its varied cultures.

The university's "missionary and intercultural specificity" must be clearly visible in the "quality of the formation that it offers" Francis says.

He says that "this way can be creative in mediating the Christian message vis-à-vis other cultures and religions".

The world needs energetic, enthusiastic missionary priests, consecrated persons and lay people to adapt the Gospel's teachings and practices to the cultures they are seeking to evangelise.

"These two things always go together: the evangelisation of culture and the inculturation of the Gospel." This is what Francis told the Dicastery for Evangelisation members responsible for the Pontifical Urban University and the Church's  so-called "mission territories".

The mixed group, including cardinals, bishops and men and women religious from every continent, held a special plenary session at the Vatican last week.

The almost 500-year old university which was established to train missionaries currently has 1,357 students from 102 nations enrolled for the 2021-22 academic year.

Fides, the Dicastery's news agency, says that most of the students receive scholarships from the Dicastery itself.

The university

Last Thursday Fides reported that a reorganisation of the university's staff was underway.

After evaluating the courses the university offers and the number of students enrolled in each class, the 2024-25 academic year will see fewer academic teaching staff.

There will be 47 instead of 62 "full professors" and 40 rather than 113 "adjunct" or "visiting" lecturers.

Despite rumours suggesting the Urbanian was about to be "blended" into another university, Francis said this is not the case.

"The inspiration and needs that led to the foundation of the university remain as timely as ever" Francis said.

But "this heritage needs to find contemporary expression in efforts to respond to the challenges presently facing the church and our world.

"We do not live in a Christian society" he said, "but we are called to live as Christians in today's pluralistic society — as Christians and open to others."

Source

• UCA News

It's also in second place in terms of financial support for missionary activity.

Such a commitment is obviously to the honor of the Spanish church, which over the centuries has been among the great motor forces of Catholic evangelisation.

The bad news, however, is that the average age of those Spanish missionaries is 75, meaning their ranks are in steady decline as current personnel age and aren't being replaced by younger clergy and religious.

Indeed, if you visit any of the traditional centers of Spanish Catholicism these days, you're likely to find what most observers now call the "reverse mission."

Reverse mission

Places which not so long ago were exporting missionaries are now net importers, increasingly reliant on personnel from former mission territories to keep their own pastoral operations afloat.

Go to a typical parish in, say, Toledo, or Granada, or Burgos, and the odds are good that the priest who says Mass will hail from Peru, or Colombia, or Mexico, or anyplace other than the country in which he's actually working.

It's hardly just Spain.

On June 6, Pope Francis made a surprise visit to St. Bridget of Sweden Church on the northwestern corner of Rome, located in the city's Palmarola neighborhood, a classic working-class district made up almost entirely of native Italians.

Yet the pastor and associate pastor who staff the parish are Congolese and Cameroonian, respectively, both missionary priests who belong to the Spiritan Fathers, formally known as the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

Like Spain, Italy was once among the great providers of missionaries around the world.

Today, however, the situation is reversed: According to data from the Italian bishops' conference, for every one Italian priest serving abroad, there are five foreign-born priests with assignments in Italy.

The total number of foreign priests in Italy today comes to 2,812, which is almost 10% of all the Catholic priests in the country.

In the small Roman parish where my wife and I worship, our associate pastor, Father Don Alberto, is from Benin, and I can testify from personal experience that without him, it's not at all clear how the community would keep going.

The same pattern holds in the United States, of course.

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, as many as 38 percent of priests in recent U.S. ordination classes were born outside the U.S.

Even in middle American venues such as the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, nearly 25 percent of the presbyterate comes from India, Kenya, and several Latin American nations.

At one level, this is a great success story:

For centuries missionaries from the cradle of Christendom in the West spread the faith around the world, and today the churches they planted are returning the favor, offering the sometimes aging and moribund churches of the West a new lease on life.

On the other hand, from a strategic planning point of view, this trend of redistributing clergy from the global south to the north is not without controversy.

In fact, there's a powerful case to be made that it's in fact an exploitative pattern, in which affluent churches in the West are poaching clergy from financially strapped churches in the developing world, without regard to where those personnel are most needed.

In Europe, for instance, there's currently one priest for every 1,700 Catholics, but in Africa that ratio is 1 to 5,700, meaning the "priest shortage" in Africa is roughly five times worse.

That contradicts impressions of Africa as booming with vocations, and it's true that seminaries across the continent tend to be full.

Yet when a church is growing, as Africa has throughout the latter half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st, disparities between faithful and clergy widen, because frankly Catholicism can baptize people much more rapidly than it can ordain them.

In other words, there is no "surplus" of priests in the developing world, and so every one of them who serves in a setting such as Spain, Italy, or the United States, is one fewer priest available to minister to congregations back home.

Two decades ago, Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Nigeria warned of where all this might be heading. Read more

• John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux, specializing in coverage of the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

Francis's announcement approved a written suggestion made at the recent synod for the Amazon which asked for the current curriculum for trainee diplomats to change.

Instead of doing an internship at the nunciature as happens now, trainees will be put at the service of a bishop in a mission area.

"I am convinced that such an experience could be helpful to all young men who are preparing for or beginning their priestly service," Francis said.

The change in the curriculum will start with students entering in the 2020-2021 academic year.

Francis said in a special way the mission experience would be helpful "for those who in the future will be called to collaborate with the pontifical representatives and, later, could become envoys of the Holy See to nations and particular churches."

In general, the corps' students, who are already ordained priests, spend four years at the academy studying for a license in canon law from one of Rome's pontifical universities followed by a doctorate in either canon law or theology.

Students who already have a doctorate when they enter have their training period reduced to two years.

All students also study diplomacy, Vatican diplomatic relations, languages, international law, papal documents and current affairs.

Once they graduate, diplomats have two roles.

They represent the Vatican to individual countries around the world and to international organisations, like the United Nations.

They also represent the pope to the local Catholic Church and coordinate the search for new bishops.

In his letter announcing the change in curriculum Francis quoted from a speech he gave to diplomatic corps students in 2015 when he reminded them of the missionary focus of all that the church does, including its diplomatic activity.

"The mission to which you will be called one day to carry out will take you to all parts of the world:

"To Europe, in need of an awakening; Africa, thirsting for reconciliation; Latin America, hungry for nourishment and interiority; North America, intent on rediscovering the roots of an identity that is not defined by exclusion; Asia and Oceania, challenged by the capacity to ferment in diaspora and to dialogue with the vastness of ancestral cultures."

Francis said he was certain "once the initial concerns" about the changes are overcome, "the missionary experience ...will be useful ... for the young academicians [and] the individual churches they will collaborate with..."

"I hope, it will give rise in other priests of the universal church a desire to make themselves available for a period of missionary service outside their dioceses."

Source

• Catholic News Service
• Image:Times of Israel
  

Holy See representative, Monsignor Marco Sprizzi, presented the missionaries with the Decoration of Honor. This honour is given by the pope to laypeople and clergy for outstanding contributions to the Church. Read more

With no internet access, how could the parish priest have got their address in Cirencester, an English country town?

And how could he know his request was exactly what they specialize in, which is implied in their name: SPICMA - Special Projects in Christian Missionary Areas.

Now, with the building complete and the new St Mark's Church soon to be re-consecrated, they have the answer. It's all because a bishop was elevated to archbishop.

St Mark's is in the village of Fote in the diocese of Auki on Malaita island. The bishop of Auki, an American Dominican missionary, Chris Cardone OP, had been appointed archbishop of Honiara, the Solomons capital.

About to move, he threw out a cache of old magazines.

"It is not only by mistake I pick one up," said Fr Albert Kalu, the parish priest, "but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

In the magazine, he found a reference to the work of SPICMA, an entirely voluntary charity founded 50 years ago to assist poor parishes such as his. Moreover, it gave the charity's address.

"Knowing our rural situation and so sympathising with our struggling community," he thought, such a charity should be able to help.

So he wrote asking for a grant to rebuild St Mark's, previously a timber and attap hut built in 1976 "at the time of the transition of our people here from paganism to Christianity."

The charity gave £16,000 that has helped to provide a brick-built church with glazed windows accommodating 300 worshippers which "will serve our community for 100 years," said Fr Kalu.

The ceremony to re-consecrate the new St Mark's will take place in December. And Fr Kalu has invited SPICMA to attend.

Source

Supplied: SPICMA press release from Mike MacLachlan

The missionaries were working in several southwestern provinces and in the northwestern autonomous region of Ningxia.

The detention of the 21 Christian group members is thought to be part of the Chinese authorities' efforts to crack down on missionary work.

They are categorising missionary work as illegal activity.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Friday he was not aware of the details surrounding the detention.

He suggested media inquiries be directed to the "relevant government departments.

"China is a country with the rule of law," Lu said.

While Beijing will protect the legal rights of all parties, Lu said "foreigners should abide by Chinese laws too and should not commit crimes."

Five of the detainees have already returned to Japan, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The ministry did not say if they were deported.

The Japanese government has expressed interest in the detentions and has asked the Chinese government to deal with the detainees properly.

Last November China detained 19 Japanese nationals affiliated with a Christian group in the southeastern province of Guangdong.

All of them were later deported.

Source

• The Mainichi
• South China Morning Post
• Image: The Gospel Herald

Fifty years later, their grand-daughter Adriana Avendano Christie, 24, and her partner Gabriel Acuna-Caruajal, 30, have started charity which is a social enterprise called The Pallet Kingdom which is giving work to refugees in Auckland making furniture out of used warehouse pallets. Continue reading

An air force plane from Spain was sent on August 6 to get Fr Miguel Pajares, 75, who was in West Africa doing missionary work.

The illness has claimed the lives of nearly 900 people in the region since February.

There is no known cure and no vaccine to protect against the disease.

Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.

It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

Fr Pajares had been working in Liberia for more than five decades

When told he would be repatriated, his reaction was: "This news has lifted my spirits, it is great, I am very happy. It is worth fighting on."

Spanish authorities organised his repatriation in line with World Health Organisation procedures.

Fr Pajares belongs to the Madrid-based, non-profit organisation Juan Ciudad and the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, which had requested the priest's urgent transfer to Spain.

He will be treated at the Hospital Carlos III in northern Madrid, which specialises in tropical diseases.

The Spanish priest has been in quarantine at Saint Joseph Hospital in Monrovia, along with five other missionaries, since the death of the hospital's director from Ebola.

Two of the missionaries, from African nations, had tested positive for Ebola and Fr Pajares asked if they could also be brought to Spain with him.

But Spanish authorities said they are only working on a request to help a Spanish citizen.

Two Americans who worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia and were infected with Ebola were brought back to the United States for treatment in recent days.

Sources

• Daily Mirror
• Associated Press
• Image: Cuatro

This comes after a test programme last year which saw 6500 Mormon missionaries in the United States and Japan equipped with the devices.

Mormon leaders say using iPad minis has helped missionaries keep in touch with church leaders and with people who have expressed an interest in their faith.

Scholars say this is the latest example of the Mormon church's gradual embrace of the digital age, and its recognition that door-to-door proselytising is not the most effective way to expand church membership.

The program will extend to all missions in United States, Canada, Japan and western Europe.

The iPad minis are outfitted with several apps that help missionary work, including a gospel app that includes scriptures, manuals, magazines and other teaching materials.

Missionaries who come from developed countries will cover the US$400 cost of an iPad mini, which will remain theirs after their mission period.

Missionaries are encouraged to use Facebook to find new members.

Continue reading

"In towns and villages many people acknowledge the sovereign hand of God over our nation and acknowledge his plan for our destiny," he said.

"The vast majority of Solomon Islands population are Christians."

He said missionaries are the chief agents of cultural changes

"They provide the dominant role models for acculturation."

"Today the churches remain as fundamental and close to lives of Solomon Islanders than ever before," he said.

He was speaking at the opening of the Seventh Day Adventist church centenary celebration at Viru, Western Province on Tuesday.

He acknowledged the good services the SDA mission has rendered to the people since 1914.

He said that like other churches the early establishment of SDA in its infancy days was not easy.

Source

• Solomon Star
• Image:2.bp.blogspot.com

For its exhibition Atua: sacred gods from Polynesia, the National Gallery of Australia has negotiated loans from more than 30 museum collections around the world.

The Vatican Ethnological Museum is lending their great god Tu from Mangareva.

The exhibition explores the relationship between atua and art, between spirits and sculpture, between gods and priests, between women and men.

It looks at some of the most unique works of art in the Polynesian world and tries to make sense of an enduring mystery surrounding religious objects and their association with belief in gods.

Source

• Radio Australia International
• The National Gallery of Australia
• Image: Sydney Morning Herald

The formal agreement was signed during the celebration of the 50th Golden Jubilee of SSEC in Ambu, Malaita.

Following the agreement, SSEC's Bishop Mathias Lima commissioned 10 Solomon Islands SSEC missionaries to serve with the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu.

Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu Moderator Kalarongo Ova earlier said the church was happy about the agreement they signed.

"I and my small delegate were invited and happy to be here. We are happy to formally have an agreement of Solomon Islands SSEC missionaries to serve in Vanuatu.

The South Seas Evangelical Church is an evangelical, Pentecostal church in the Solomon Islands. In total, 17% of the population of the Solomon Islands adheres to the church, making it the third most common religious affiliation in the country behind the Anglican Church of Melanesia and the Roman Catholic Church.

The SSEC is particularly popular on Malaita, the most populous island, where 47% of its members live; there are also smaller populations are on Guadalcanal, Honiara, Makira, and other provinces.

Source

• Solomon Star
• Wikipedia
• Image: ssecorgs

Samoa's motto says: "Samoa is founded on God" and the locals' strong religious beliefs are etched everywhere in day-to-day life.

Christianity was informally introduced to the islands by travellers in the late 1700s. When Methodist missionary Peter Turner arrived there in 1828 he discovered there were already Methodists on the islands.

Methodists had established a mission in Tonga and the religion had spread to Samoa.

John Williams of the London Missionary Society arrived at Sapapalii on his ship Messenger of Peace in 1830 with eight teachers. Hymn and prayer books were then printed in Samoan and in 1848 the first Samoan version of the New Testament was published. This was followed by the Old Testament in Samoan seven years later.

In 1848 two French Catholic priests established followers in the village of Sale'aula and this has been followed by many other denominations.

And the missionary work continues - young Mormons regularly cross the islands on their bikes - fully rigged out in their usual sartorial splendour.

Church attendance is very high - some estimate up to 95 per cent of the Samoan people are regular churchgoers. Sundays on the islands are special, with the locals seen walking to and from their churches - often wearing white to represent purity and clutching their Bible.

I slipped into one of these services at a church in Fagali'i-Tai, about 5km east of Apia. There didn't seem to be any strict timetable of worship and people seemed to be arriving at all different times, but I got lots of big Samoan smiles of welcome.

Another Kiwi tourist who was drawn into a church service by the beautiful singing was treated to a sermon translated into English - the pastor did it especially for her. Continue reading

Sources

• Robyn Yousef in The New Zealand Herald
• Image: Everywhere

Robyn Yousef is an Auckland writer.

"Jesus is speaking to each one of us, saying: 'It was wonderful to take part in World Youth Day, to live the faith together with young people from the four corners of the earth, but now you must go, now you must pass on this experience to others'," he said.

On the white sand of Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach, the Pope was celebrating the closing Mass for the 2013 WYD.

The first need for evangelization is to "go," Pope Francis told the assembled young people.

When faith stays "locked up" within a small Christian community, he said, it is "like withholding oxygen from a flame that was burning strongly".

"Faith is a flame that grows stronger the more it is shared and passed on, so that everyone may know, love and confess Jesus Christ."

The Pope said the command to evangelise is not optional. "Jesus did not say: 'if you would like to, if you have the time'."

"It is a command that is born not from a desire for domination or power but from the force of love, from the fact that Jesus first came into our midst and gave us, not a part of himself, but the whole of himself; he gave his life in order to save us and to show us the love and mercy of God."

The Church is meant to evangelise all persons, Pope Francis taught, saying there are "no borders, no limits" to where Christians are sent to evangelise.

"Do not be afraid to go and to bring Christ into every area of life, to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent. The Lord seeks all, he wants everyone to feel the warmth of his mercy and his love."

The Pope said he knows how daunting it can be to take up the responsibility to share the Gospel, but "Jesus does not leave us alone; he never leaves you alone".

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Catholic News Service

Image: Seattlepi.com

In his homily on the WYD theme, "Go and make disciples of all nations", local Archbishop Orani Joao Tempesta invited the young people to be missionaries.

"This week Rio has become the centre of the Church, its heart both youthful and vibrant," he said. "You have come from all over the world to share together in the faith and the joy of being disciples and missionaries in all nations."

Though Copacabana is better known for hosting millions of revellers during the annual New Year's Eve celebrations, the archbishop compared it to the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

"The sea, the sand, the beach and the crowd remind us of the call of the other disciples,"
he said, and Christ "invites us for a swim in deep waters, the waters of our baptism".

Archbishop Tempesta encouraged the pilgrims to participate in their communities "with enthusiasm", making it an opportunity of "coexisting with our brothers and sisters, witnessing that another world is possible".

At dusk, the large stage dominated by a blue cross was lit up with the colours of the Brazilian flag. Silence greeted the arrival of the WYD Cross and an image of the Virgin Mary, carried in procession by young people from the five continents.

The huge congregation assembled despite heavy winter rains that swept through Rio and a breakdown in the city's subway system that led to serious traffic jams.

As is customary, Pope Francis did not participate in the opening ceremony, but a Vatican spokesman confirmed that he watched the event on television and was impressed by the size of the congregation braving the rain.

The WYD gathering will include catechetical presentations by 250 different bishops, drawn from all around the world, in a score of languages.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Vatican Information Service

Image: KQED

In August 1842 Michel Borjon, a Marist priest, and Jean Villemagne, a Marist Brother (Br Deodat), set out by ship from Auckland to Wellington. They were to found the Catholic Church in Wellington and Michel was to be Wellington's first resident parish priest.

Their vessel was last sighted at Mercury Bay on 12 August 1842, and not seen again until wreckage was picked up on the East Coast of the North Island.

Both Borjon and Villemagne, along with their fellow travellers, were presumed drowned at sea. There were no survivors.

Society of Mary Archivist Ken Scadden unveiled the memorial stone, and representatives of the Society of Mary, the Marist Brothers and the French Embassy unveiled an explanatory panel.

Archbishop of Wellington John Dew then blessed the memorial.

Borjon arrived in New Zealand in 1841 along with other well known Marists including Fathers Antoine Garin, Jean Antoine Seon and Brother Basile (Michel) Monchalin, and a lay Marist, M. Jean Francois Yvert, who is buried in the Mount Street cemetery, and whose grave was re-discovered some three years ago using a Ground Penetrating Radar Survey.

Brother Deodat had arrived in 1842, accompanied by Brothers Justin (Etienne) Perret and Luc Ardant, Frs Forest, Reignier, Grange and Lampila.

Before being sent to Wellington, Brother Deodat had been assigned to the Bay of Islands and Borjon had been in Rotorua.

Source

• www.sm.org.nz
• SM Archives

Attempting to condemn bad proselytism, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism spoke against conversions and changing from one religion to another.

His position was seen as support for the policies of the radical Hindu groups and the anti-conversion laws that exist in some Indian states. Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the archbishop of Bombay, took issue with him.

Continue reading

O'Neill told the Vatican's Nuncio to PNG that churches have contributed enormously to the country by delivering services to remote areas that the governments have failed to provide for.

O'Neill says churches remain at the forefront of service delivery and their contributions are huge.

He says there had been many foreign dedicated missionaries in the past and his government would like to see them return to help with social services.

O'Neill says the Government's poor record of service delivery was underlined by the fact that despite a windfall of revenue in the last six years, there was very little to show for this on the ground.

Source

• Radio New Zealand International
• Image: Robert Claw