KAMPALA – The Catholic Church in Uganda is ready to host the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the African Bishops Assembly under SECAM, due in the country this weekend between July 20-29, Rev. Fr. Joseph Komakoma, the Secretary General of SECAM has said.
The 18th Plenary Assembly and Golden Jubilee of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) will run under the theme: “Church-Family of God in Africa, Celebrate Your Jubilee! Proclaim Jesus Christ Your Saviour”
Rev. Fr. Komakoma says the event will host about 300 participants including representatives from the Vatican, Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, priests and representatives of Religious congregations.
Also expected are the lay faithful and other dignitaries from the length and breadth of the World, Africa to deliberate on how far the church has come and what the way forward should be for the next fifty or so years.
The deliberations, he said will also lead to the finalization of the “Kampala Document”.
Kampala Document is a pastoral document which will review the journey of SECAM over the past fifty years and will give direction on where the Church in Africa should be in the next fifty years, in terms of pastoral priorities.
“Ten thousand copies of the document will be printed in the three formal languages of SECAM; English, French and Portuguese and published on the SECAM website for easy download by all and sundry,” he said.
According to programme a copy of which PML Daily has seen, the climax of the event will be a Solemn Mass at the Uganda Martyrs Shrine, Namugongo, Kampala, on Sunday, July 28, 2019, and united in prayer with all the entire Church in Uganda as well as Masses in various dioceses, parishes and Small Christian communities across Africa and the Islands.
This website understands that the Holy Father will be represented by a delegation from the Vatican, which is likely to include the African Cardinals serving at the Holy See — Peter Turkson from Ghana, Robert Sarah Guinea, and Archbishop Protase Rugambwa of Tanzania, who works as the Secretary for the of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples at the Vatican.
The SECAM is a body that brings together all Catholic Bishops in Africa was born in Uganda at the time when St. Pope Paul VI visited the country in 1969.
It is the body that brings together all the Catholic Episcopal Conferences of Africa and the Islands to work in solidarity and collegiality at pan African level to promote the Catholic Church’s participation in education, spiritual, medical, social and economic development of the continent. It was founded in Uganda.
The Bishops of Africa, during one of their recent plenaries, decided that they hold the organization’s golden jubilee celebrations.
Rev. Fr. Komakoma said the Bishops in Africa continue to invite each faithful, every Christian, all church institutions and religious groups, communities in Africa, Madagascar, and the islands, to let the call to this mission resonate with each and every one and to respond to it with zeal.
