A Listening Church: Autonomy and Communion in African Churches

AIDS. Famine. Ethnic strife. Refugees. Poverty. Debt. Environmental degradation. These form the wounded face of Africa today, the reality confronting the church in Africa. To heal Africa, Spiritan Father Elochukwu Uzukwu argues that the church in Africa must become a credible and effective agent of change by making full use of African resources - natural and socio-historical - including traditional patterns of social organization. In order to renew itself, the church must remember that it does not exist for itself but for the people - to bear witness in Africa to the risen Lord.
Focusing on the Catholic church in Africa today, A Listening Church proposes a fresh approach to ecclesiology. Following closely on the African Synod of Bishops, Uzukwu proposes the initiation of serious theological discussion on the structure of the church in Africa that came out of that historic occasion. Simply speaking, the African churches must listen to their people, and the church in Rome must listen to the churches in Africa.

Elochukwu E. Uzukwu is a visiting lecturer at the Catholic Institute of West Africa and the Institut Catholique de Paris.