Pope promises look at African style

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 10

Pope promises look at African style

NZPA-Reuter Lome, Togo

Pope John Paul 11, at the start of a seven-nation tour of Africa, said yesterday that the Vatican was ready to study demands from African Catholics that the Church adapt to local cultural traditions. Pressure for a more African style of worship is expected to dominate his visit to a continent where animist beliefs are strong.

About two-thirds of Togo lese are animists, believing that divine spirits inhabit all living things. Some African clergymen say the Vatican should take more account of the continent’s traditions, but Rome refuses to accept practices such as polygamy and experimental marriage. Speaking on arrival in Togo, his first stop, the Pontiff said that the Church

in Africa was reaching a stage where its faith must mature and bear fruits that were authentically African and authentically Christian. “We shall study this problem,” he declared. Later at an open-air Mass he acknowledged the importance of traditional beliefs and practices, but warned Catholics that they must distinguish between what was good and what

was alien to Christian understanding. “Each custom should be examined prudently, with discernment, without tearing up the good grain prematurely with the tares,” he said.

Christians should “retain what is healthy, just, true, beneficial and compatible with faith in one God and the Christian idea of marriage, and break with what is

opposed to the revelation of God and the charity He has spread in our hearts.” The Pope was greeted by gaily dressed Togolese singing and dancing when he flew in from Rome. He will also visit the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Zaire, Kenya, and Morocco, a largely Muslim country. Tens of thousands of people thronged a square in

the centre of Lome for the first of 13 Masses he will say during his 12-day tour. He was ordaining 11 Togo lese priests today and was to visit Togoville, a main centre of animist belief, where there is a sanctuary to Our Lady of Lake Togo, erected in memory of German missionaries who brought Catholicism to Togo at the end of the nineteenth century.