CCSA

Pope Benedict XVI Praises Africa

African Christians
Letter of thanks from the Pope to Cardinal Monsengwo Pasinya who directed a retreat in which he indicated the continent as a guide for the new evangelization

Rome - "The peculiar testimony of faith of the Church who believes, hopes and loves the African continent" is "a spiritual heritage that is a great richness for all the People of God and the whole world, especially in view of the new evangelization." The Pope affirmed this in a letter addressed to Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the conclusion of the Spiritual Exercises he preached in the Vatican for the Pope and the Roman Curia. "As a son of the Church in Africa", Pope Benedict XVI wrote to the African cardinal, "you have made us experience once again that exchange of gifts which is one of the most beautiful aspects of ecclesial communion, in which the variety of geographical and cultural origins finds a way to express itself in a symphonic unity of the Mystical Body." "All this, which was visible in your very presence and your style of being a cardinal, in charge this year of preaching the retreat, was for the Pope a cause of special joy." For his part, even the Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, at the microphones of Vatican Radio, focused on the powerful experience of the exercises preached by Monsengwo Pasinya.