In a goodwill message to the Congress of the African Catholic Union of the Press (UCAP) recently in Cape Town, South Africa, he urged them to continue connecting with national and international organisations to promote capacity-building for African Catholic Journalists.

“May this conference encourage and challenge you on the basis of your traditions and culture as well as your age-old Africa wisdom, to face and deal with the structural imbalances that create and maintain impoverishment on this beautiful continent,” he added.

He prayed that the Congress based on Catholic Social Teachings with the roadmap of Africae Munus, would help address the challenges of reconciliation, justice and peace and enlighten the signs of the times with the Gospel and restore dignity to all African children, giving high priority to the youth.

Dr. Ruffini assured African Catholic Journalists of the Dicastery’s complete availability to collaborate, imagine and implement appropriate follow-up programmes and projects at both national and regional levels, promoting oversea networking as well in the best universal sense of being Catholic.

He called on UCAP to intensify its collaboration with the World Catholic Association for Communications (SIGNIS), Catholic Media Council (CAMECO) and the Pan African Episcopal Committee of Social Communications (CEPACS).

He further stressed on the need to establish the Catholic News Agency for Africa (CANAA) in all dioceses on the continent in line with the Golden Jubilee of  the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

“We can never insist enough on the need for collaboration among Catholic Communication practitioners and media establishments in terms of finding alternative means of giving voice to the voiceless, exposing corruption and denouncing the structures of evil,” he noted.

The Vatican Communications head observed that for many years development had wrongly been reduced to “economic growth,” an obsolete notion that imposed a failed attempt to impose a development ideology on poor countries.

which currently encompasses all dimensions of the human person in a holistic and more complex perception including anthropological, historical, cultural, economic, political, ecological, religious and spiritual features.

Speaking at the same Congress, Rev. Fr. Prof. Walter C. Ihejirika, President of SIGNIS-Africa said the promotion of peace and reconciliation on the African Continent was quite urgent and a current mission entrusted to the Church in Africa by the Second African Synod and articulated in the Papal Exhortation, Africae Munus

The Congress was attended by 43 Catholic journalists working for both the Church and secular media from 20 African countries including Ghana. It was held in collaboration with the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference, SIGNIS, and CEPACS.

Among the participants were the Most Rev. Stephen Brislin, President of the South Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference and Archbishop of Cape Town; Rev. Fr. Janvier Yameogo, a Vatican representative; Madam Petra Stammen of CAMECO Africa Desk; Sir Benedict Assorow, Managing Editor of The Catholic Standard and UCAP Council member; Mr. George Sunguh and Mrs. Victoria Lugey, UCAP President and Vice respectively.

The theme for the Conference was Using the Media for Promotion of Integral Human Development in Africa with sub themes: Journalism for truth and reconciliation in the Church and of service to people; Promoting Peace, Truth and Reconciliation in Africa in a Digital Age; Making the Church more relevant to the Youth in the Church in Africa and Promoting the Social teachings of the Church through the Media in Africa.

Ghanaian Dr. Anthony Bonnah Koomson, a former Lecturer of the School of Communications, University of Ghana and the Catholic University College, Fiapre, delivered a paper on Journalism for truth and reconciliation in the Church and of service to peoples.

The Congress was held at a time the Southern Africa Church is celebrating 200 years of its establishment in the country.

Past UCAP Congresses have been held in Bamako-Mali; Mombasa-Kenya and Ouagadougou-Burkina Faso.