Scottish Catholic Observer

“The Catholic Church is a universal institution, both human and divine. It is not a European church, it is not a Canadian church or a US church,” Cardinal Berhaneyesus Souraphiel of Addis Ababa (above) said. “It’s different. The issues families are facing in some parts of the world would be different than in other parts of the world.”

While Europe and North America face problems such as how to respond pastorally to state-sanctioned same-sex unions or divorced and remarried Catholics, families in other parts of the world face issues that arise from economic globalisation or rapid urbanisation.

“For us in Ethiopia, the big issue will be poverty,” Cardinal Souraphiel added. “If you are not sure if you can continue providing sustenance for the family, food and so on— not only rent, but food—if you don’t have this [basic economic stability] you might find the husband working somewhere else, the wife working somewhere else. The family separates. And then the children suffer.”

With more and more Ethiopian women finding work abroad in Arab states as domestic workers and Ethiopian men seeking jobs in mines or on large-scale industrial farms, Ethiopia’s rapidly expanding economy is making it hard to keep a family together, the cardinal said.

“We feel here the issue is, how can the Church contribute to the alleviation of poverty?” he said.

Bishops’ conferences should play a role in helping individual bishops adapt the teaching of the synod to their country or region, the cardinal said.

“The episcopal conferences have been sent, not to replace or to change the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ or the teaching of the Church, but to see that the teaching of the Gospel is inculturated, is put into the life situation of the particular country or particular society,” he added.

—This story ran in full in the August 21 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.