Catholic Communicators have been challenged to tell stories which promotes the dignity of Africans and the positive developments happening on the continent.
The Board Chairman for Catholic News Agency for Africa (CANAA), Most Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle made the remarks when he delivered an opening speech during a training workshop on online reporting about Church activities in Africa being held in Nairobi, Kenya.
Archbishop Buckle who is also Archbishop for Accra, Ghana said CANAA exists to promote reconciliation, justice and peace in fulfillment of its mission hence advocates for respect of human rights and the dignity of the human person as such the Church through its communicators ought to tell such stories online.
“The Church has the mission also of engaging governments and civil leadership to be at the service of the citizens of this continent. As the many media houses seem to focus more on the negatives in Africa, a lot of good and positives by the Church and other religious institutions go unreported,” he said.
He said Africa is often times betrayed as a continent of gloom and doom and societal failure of ethnocentrism, violent conflicts, corruption, epidemics like HIV/AIDS and Ebola but there are many interventions and positive activities of the Church in Africa that go unreported.
Coordinator for CANAA, Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla Ochieng said it’s high time the Church in Africa embraced the use of digital and social media to bring the good news of the Church in Africa to the continent and beyond.
It is expected that Malawi will mobilize its lay Catholic Association of Catholic Journalists to be active contributors of Church stories through the Episcopal Conference of Malawi’s Communications department to CANAA.
The Catholic News Agency for Africa (CANAA) is an independent news service for Pastoral, Socio-political, economic news stories, features, commentaries, analysis and multimedia content in Africa and beyond.
Any human being with the right senses should embrace any vision brought about to promote justice and peace in the world. We need to uphold and retain the ethical values that human beings deserve. It is time that God’s presence within us must truly be felt.
Truly speaking,the human kind has lost its values because of misunderstanding the true principles of democracy. If the churches can collectively be able to give advice to the government with the spirit of good governance, there is no wisdom to rebuke them that they are overstepping the authorities of those in power. The church leaders are the custodians of justice and peace on earth as they enforce the practice of God’s commandments being pillars of every constitutions enacted by every country on earth.
CANAA we applaud the steps taken.
Musazungulire tanglfotokozani chamuna mwina pari pomwe mukufuna kulidzudzula boma pa zolakwika zomwe mukuziona. Tateloni posayang’anira kuti tsogoleli wa boma ndi wa catholic nzanu.
Mwatopa ndi milungu itatu mu modzi tsopano kulowelela tchito zaweni