Address of H.E. Archbishop Henryk M. Jagodzinski on the occasion of the 2022nd Plenary Assembly of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference held at Apostolic Vicariate of Donkorkrom 4th – 12th November 2022
Mister Chairman, President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference
Your Graces, Apostolic Vicar of the Vicariate of Donkorkrom, the Host of the day
Your Lordships, National, Regional and Local Traditional Rulers
All protocols observed
Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ
It is my joy and pleasure to be with you again on the opening of the Annual Plenary Assembly of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference. As a representative of His Holiness Pope Francis in your beautiful country, it is my honour to bring to you his warm greetings and blessings with whom I have an audience in the past May of this year. So to each one of you, I give his blessings.
The theme – For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission in the Light of the New Evangelization in Ghana , for the Annual Plenary Session of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference 2022, is a very well chosen theme as you take the journey of the Synodal Church, specifically the Church in Ghana.
In his homily on 11th October 2022 for the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pope Francis said that Church synodal journey should start ‘from the loving gaze of God with the joy that flows from the feeling of being loved, welcomed and accompanied by God… The Church needs first to be viewed from on high, with God’s eyes full of love.”
As the Church in Ghana continues to move on this synodal journey, I encourage each one of you to take the invitation of Pope Francis to look into the depth of yourselves, as individuals, as communities, as parishes, as dioceses and as a whole Catholic Church in Ghana, and see and experience the great love of God for you, manifested through the many blessings He has given to you as people of Ghana. Reflecting on your Church’s history, first of all, God’s manifestation of His great love to you as a Church, is a gift, most valuable than material blessings, most precious than gold, the Gift of Faith and the Gift of God’s Presence, the first to be given in West Africa.
In Shama, which is today, a part of Sekondi-Takoradi Diocese, was put up a large wooden cross on the beach, the first Cross ever to stand on West African soil in 1471. It is also highly believed that the first Holy Mass was celebrated on the shore by Missionary priests accompanying the expedition. You can count and count many more God’s blessings, which had come in many forms, in the joys and pains, in trials and difficulties, in successes and failures, and in all these situations, we see in the eyes of faith, the accompaniment of God, His unconditional love, that brought the Church in Ghana to what it is now.
The Church in Ghana which seed of faith was sown in Shama, has grown and spread throughout the country and becomes an evangelizing community to herself and to the wider community, outside of her. Having experienced the great love of God, the Church in Ghana ‘knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, He has loved you first, and therefore, you can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others…” (Evangelii Gaudium n.24).
Synodal Process is not at all new to the Church journey especially in Africa. In the Apostolic Exhortations of St. Pope John Paul II, Christifideles Laici and Ecclesia in Africa, the Pope talked about the elements of synodal journey and synodal process. He said: “Throughout the various phases of the preparation for the Special Assembly, many members of the Church in Africa — clergy, religious and laity — entered with exemplary dedication into the Synodal process, “walking together”, placing their individual talents at the service of the Church, and fervently praying together for the Synod’s success.” (EA25)
He further said: “Pastors ought to accompany this lay missionary activity with discerning guidance and encouragement so the lay associations might grow in Church communion and mission. All, pastors and laity, have the duty to promote and nourish stronger bonds, participation and collaboration among the various lay groups with patience, farsightedness and readiness to sacrifice. In such a way, this essential communion leads to mission, and mission itself to communion” (CL).
To contribute to your reflection in your synodal sharing and deliberation, I want to share with you some points from the Pontifical Teachings concerning your theme, Synodal Journey in the light of new evangelization.
New evangelization, as we all know, has its genesis in the encyclical written by St. Pope John Paul II in 1990 on the Church’s missionary mandate entitled Redemptoris Missio, in which he called for a renewed and wholehearted commitment of Christians to missionary activity. He wrote: “God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for the sowing of the Gospel. I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes. No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty to proclaim Christ to all peoples” (RM 3). Inspired to take up the pope’s call, new evangelization ministries were created to respond to this need and were successful especially those directed toward young people.
St. Pope John Paul II’s successor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, was also deeply committed to the cause of new evangelization, establishing the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization in 2010. Pope Benedict also wrote his own share of documents with implications for evangelization ministry, such as his encyclicals Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) and Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). Important to be included also are the Apostolic Exhortations of St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Ecclesiae Africa and Africa Munus, respectively, which speak of the ‘new evangelization’ journey of the Church in Africa.
Our present Holy Father Pope Francis continues St. Pope John Paul II’s emphasis on the need for mission, but brings his own unique perspective that develops and complements the teachings of his both immediate predecessors.
Pope Francis exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, from his first year as Pope, was dedicated to evangelization, an exhortation that followed the Synod on Evangelization in 2012.
At the beginning of the exhortation he writes: I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”. (3)
With these lines, Pope Francis essentially affirms the existence of New Evangelization ministries. In the exhortation Pope Francis invites all who believe in Christ, and surely, the primary call is for all of us Catholics, to a renewed personal daily encounter of Jesus or allowing Jesus to encounter us, in order to experience the joy brought about by our encounter with Him. This renewed encounter with God’s love which blossoms into an enriching friendship and liberated us from narrowness and self absorption leading us to attain the fullest truth of our being, is a source and inspiration of all our efforts at evangelization. ‘For if we have received the love which restores the meaning of our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others’ (cf. EG 3 &8). The exhortation is a call for the whole Church to experience the Joy of the Gospel, the Joy that comes from the deep encounter with Christ, which ushers the Church and every individual to what Pope Francis calls the new phase of evangelization, marked by enthusiasm and vitality.
In the same exhortation, Pope Francis presented his missionary concerns starting from the Church Missionary Transformation and Conversion, Pastoral conversion and an ecclesial renewal, and areas of missionary concerns that needs to be addressed by the new evangelization.
On ecclesial renewal, Pope Francis said that each particular Church, as a portion of the Catholic Church under the leadership of its bishop, is called to missionary conversion. It is the primary subject of evangelization since it is the concrete manifestation of the one Church in one specific place, and in it, the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative. In this ecclesial conversion, bishop is called to foster always missionary communion in his diocesan Church and to encourage and develop means of participation and other forms of pastoral dialogue (EG 30-31).
Pope Francis also spoke of the conversion of his papacy and the central structures of the universal Church. Responding to this call for conversion of his papacy, we have witnessed the reformation of the Apostolic Constitution – Praedicate Evangelium which was decreed by the Pope on 5th June 2022. The Pope said that this Church’s missionary conversion aims to renew her as a mirror of Christ’s own mission of love. The Lord’s disciples are called to be ‘light of the world’ (Mt. 5:14). In this way, the Church reflects the saving love of Christ, the true light of the world (Praedicate Evangelium 2).
The Missionary Transformation of the Church or Church Missionary Conversion calls for a Church which ‘goes forth’ and whose doors are open, compared to a Mother with open heart, which reflects the saving love of Christ, the light of the world. The Church is called to be the House of the Father, with doors always open so that everyone can share the life of the Church, everyone can be part of the community. This is especially true to the doors of the Sacraments. And for the whole Church to take up missionary impulse, she has to go forth to everyone without exception (cf: EG47&48).
Pope Francis has also written several other documents. Each of these documents is inherently mission-oriented. There is the Laudato Si on care for the environment; the care for our common home, the earth; Amoris Laetitia on love in the family; Gaudete et Exultate on the call to Holiness in our modern world, and recently his encyclical Fratelli Tutti on human fraternity. Some have missionary areas of concern which have been mentioned already in Evangelii Gaudium like the call to Holiness and the call for ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.
Your Excellencies, all the pontifical documents are rich resources for your reflection and their missionary concern calls for its translation to evangelization ministries using the synodal process, that encourages the participation of all.
It is my hope that the teachings of our Holy Father Pope Francis and of his immediate predecessors which is an actualization of the teachings of Jesus Christ will prove helpful in your plenary assembly, enabling the Church in Ghana to a synodal journey inspired by the great love of God and the company of Mother Mary, the Star of Evangelization. His Holiness Pope Francis assures the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ghana of his nearness and imparts upon you all His Apostolic Blessing. I wish you all a fruitful and successful plenary assembly.
