SECAM Standing Committee to Meet Pope Francis.

PRESS RELEASE REF: COM-CEPACS/SECAM/2015/01  January 30, 2015.

The Standing Committee of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) will be received in audience by His Holiness Pope Francis next week in the Vatican. The leadership of SECAM will brief the Pope on the current situation of the Church in Africa.

The audience with the Pope will be preceded by a statutory meeting of the Standing Committee of SECAM, taking place in the Vatican from February 2-8, 2015.

While in the Vatican the Committee comprising eleven bishops headed by the President of SECAM, Most Rev. Gabriel Mbilingi of Angola, will hold discussions with heads of a number of diacstries (major offices) of the Vatican. The offices include the Secretariat of State; the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples; the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The rest are, the Pontifical Councils for Culture; Inter-religious Dialogue; and that of the Family.

The Standing Committee will also review SECAM’s collaboration and joint activities with the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) with particular reference to a SECAM-CCEE Seminar on the Family that is scheduled to take place in Mozambique in May this year.

The Standing Committee comprises the President, the two Vice-Presidents of SECAM, the Treasurer and a representative each of the eight Episcopal regions of SECAM.

SECAM was founded in  July 1969 in  Kampala, Uganda. It has its headquarters in Accra, Ghana. Rev. Fr. Joseph Komakoma is the Secretary General of SECAM.

Issued by the Director of Communications of SECAM