NAIROBI, MAY 22 2015 (CISA) – Youth of Africa, especially those in universities and tertiary institutions are the “future of missions in Africa, Fr Lance Nadeau told a conference of catholic bishops, priests, lay, and men and women religious.
According to Fr Lance who is the chaplain at Kenyatta University, these youth are better equipped with the energy, intellectual competence and technology.
“African youth are going to change our understanding of missionary identity and relevance, and will give a new identity, relevance and role to mission” he said.
Fr Lance noted that 20 years, Africa will provide the youngest workforce in the global market, therefore; “the missionary Church should not fail to appreciate the impact African youth in tertiary institutions will have on human life in this century.”
Rev Lance mentioned that Pope John Paul II introduced in the Redemption Mission three modern equivalents; Genetic Engineering, the Globalised Economy, and Social Communications. They are the new sectors in which the gospel must be proclaimed, by African youth.
He noted that the youth are able to ‘engage’ in the encounter between faith, reason and sciences, and can serve humanity by interpreting the three equivalents in light of the person’s dignity and calling to communion with others.
African youth are going to be the great missionaries in the future “and the majority of sub-Saharan Christianity, which will comprise one fourth of the global Christianity and they will assume major responsibilities in the world Church, specifically, the Church’s mission to evangelize”.
Fr Lance urged bishops and their collaborators to prepare youth in tertiary institutions to be missionaries by assigning their best personnel to chaplaincy and invest more on ‘edge –cutting’ formation programs for the youth.
“It is part of the responsibility of African Bishops to empower the youth to take up their responsibility of evangelization, which St. John Paul II said it’s the “right and duty of African youth” based on their baptismal dignity,” he said.
He was speaking at the just ended International Missionary Conference in Nairobi.
The United Nations described youth as those of age 15-24, and the constitution of Kenya as those of age 18-35 years.
