The Church and the Challenges of the African Society. From War to Peace through Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Abstract

Reconciliation is part of a process that moves people who suffer the disabling consequences of (violent) conflict, harm or injustice, towards a situation of enabling and sustainable life together. In the violent conflicts ravaging the African continent, reconciliation is an emergency. Based on truth, justice and charity, only reconciliation can lead African peoples to true peace. From hoped peace to lived peace there is a process which is not given in advance. The major instruments of the restoration of peace are political institutions whose primary duty is the establishment and management of a just social order. However, we believe that the current situation in Africa cannot be based only on a socio-political and economic development. The theology of reconciliation is about taking into account the universal mediation of Christ which is revealed wherever men learn to love and serve one another. Rethinking pastoral practice of reconciliation in Africa is, firstly, to consider the issues that men and women arise, namely how God relates to the conditions of violence and poverty in which they live and secondly, to rediscover the meaning of suffering and how Christianity can be an experience of salvation and social liberation that offers the Kingdom of God as horizon.