The Pope will, as always, suspend all audiences including his Wednesday General Audiences, for the annual series of spiritual exercises for members of the Roman Curia which are due to take place between 26 February and 3 March in the Vatican.
Vatican Insider has learnt that this year, the Pope has asked a figure that is emblematic of the African continent, the Congolese cardinal, Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, to preach during this week’s exercises.
The Pope’s previous choices of Lenten preachers include: Marco Cé, Giacomo Biffi, Albert Vanhoye, Francis Arinze and clerics Enrico dal Covolo and François-Marie Léthel. This time, Benedict XVI has picked a man who plays a key role in Africa in the fields of peace and Congolese politics.
The seventy two year old Archbishop of Kinshasa is tirelessly committed to promoting dialogue and reconciliation. He proved this as Bishop of Kisangami during Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship, then with Laurent- Désiré Kabila and now with Laurent-Désiré’s son, Joseph, who has been President of the Republic of Congo since 2001.
In is official biography which has been published in the Vatican, it says Cardinal Monsengwo “has always raised his voice to defend people’s rights and to condemn violence, asking for and suggesting commonly agreed solutions for armed and economic conflict, based on international law.”
As Bishop of Kisangani and then the capital Kinshasa, he has always strived to put an end to hostility and gather everyone round the negotiating table.
The former President of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) “has never concealed the most burning social and political problems and the attempts to exploit and marginalise Africa, proposing a global vision of issues concerning the African continent.”
Appointed bishop in 1980 by John Paul II, he was even consecrated bishop by him in May 1980, in Kinshasa, during Wojtyla’s first trip to Africa.
As a Theology graduate and doctor of Biblical Sciences, he has always had a special relationship with Benedict XVI. Indeed, it was Benedict XVI who appointed him as head of the Archdiocese of Kinshasa in December 2007 and then made him the first special African Secretary of a Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, in 2008.
Then, in the November 2010 Concistory, Benedict XVI made him a cardinal and has now asked him to preach in the Vatican – a sign for Africa and for the College of Cardinals.