Vatican City, Nov 16, 2011 / 14:29 pm
With only days to go before the Pope arrives in the African country of Benin, Bishop Barthélemy Adoukonou says he hopes Benedict XVI’s visit to his homeland will help Africa resist secularization.
“Some within the secularized culture of the West are trying to direct all mankind in the same direction, and (it’s) the wrong direction,” the secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture told CNA Nov 15.
Bishop Adoukonou said the influence of secularism is “a great injustice against other cultures, including our African culture, which is very much open to God.”
His perspective on the Nov. 18-20 trip is one that is hard to find. He is not only from the southern Beninese city of Abomey, but he also knows Pope Benedict well from being his student at the University of Regensburg in the 1970s.
“All the people of Benin—Catholic and non-Catholic—are waiting for the Pope with joy and a great hope,” he said, looking ahead to this coming weekend. In fact, the Beninese are preparing for the Pope’s arrival by hosting a congress “aimed at reflecting upon the problems in society and issues that the Pope will likely raise in his exhortation.”