The III Pan-African Catholic Congress on Theology, Society, and Pastoral Life is one of the high-points of the celebration of the Jubilee Year for the Church in Africa. At this Congress, African theologians, pastoral agents, young people, grassroots faith leaders and change agents in Africa and her islands will gather as one family of God to celebrate our Faith as African Catholics. At this special assembly,
delegates and participants will listen to stories and testimonies of life-changing mission projects from Africa’s young people, women, and pastoral agents working in different parts of Africa. African bishops, theologians, church change agents, and lay members of Christ’s faithful from all over Africa will share their hopes and dreams for the future of the Church in Africa and how the Church in Africa can
fulfill her mission of embodying hope and pragmatic solidarity for all of God’s people in Africa especially those who live at the existential peripheries.

This Pan-African Catholic Jubilee Congress will create inclusive and empowering spaces for a series of African palavers on the signs of hope in Africa as delegates listen to each other in a synodal spirit of reverential dialogue. The assembly will reflect on the vision of the Church in Africa for a hopeful future and* together explore some concrete steps for realizing the hope of Africa through the mission of the Church. Delegates will speak on what hope looks like for God’s people in Africa and how the Christian faith can inspire concrete actions, spiritualities, moral traditions, church life, liturgies, and evangelical zeal for good governance and the good of order in Africa. Through the liturgical celebrations that will take place during the Congress, delegates will enter deeper into the mysteries of God’s love and action in Africa while paying attention to the footprints of God in the history of God’s people in Africa and the
world. The hope is that this unique Jubilee Congress will birth for the Church in Africa and the World Church a roadmap for the future that we are praying for, built on the faith and assets of God’s people in Africa. 

In union with African Catholic bishops under the aegis of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), and working in partnership with the Holy See, and partnering organizations, universities, and Catholic agencies throughout Africa and the world, this Jubilee Congress will bring together more than 350 delegates and representatives from all of Africa and the World Church. We will gather to bear witness to the impact of faith and Catholicism in Africa. We will unite as one to strengthen the agency of the Church Family of God in Africa as a bearer of the Gospel of love and hope.

This Congress will come up with concrete steps and actions for the Church in Africa and her leaders and people in fulfilling the missionary mandate of the Lord in realizing the eschatological fruits of God’s reign of just peace, progress, integral salvation, justice, and abundant life for God’s people in Africa through a faith that does good works.

This Congress is driven by a shared dream for a better future for African peoples built on resilient, transformational, and life-bearing ecclesial institutions, structures, programs, and missionary discipleship. It is a dream that our ancestors, from the beginning of the Christian faith in Africa, transmitted from one generation to another. African theologians, pastoral agents, and the community of practitioners under the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN), who have organized this Pan-African Congress since 2019 share a common hope for the future of the church and society in Africa. 

This hope is built on the conviction that the different challenges and opportunities in Africa today offer the Church in Africa and God’s people the opportunity to act differently and courageously drawing from the gift of faith to change permanently the direction of history in Africa and break the cycle of suffering, and dependency through institutional resilience, practices and ethics that promote abundant life. 

The theme of hope for this Congress is inspired by the message of the Jubilee year. It is also inspired by Pope Francis’s Ad Theologiam Promovendam. Church scholars and pastoral agents are charged to seek the pathways to hope through research, publication, advocacy, service to church and society, and support for each other’s personal, intellectual, spiritual, and professional growth. Ad Theologian Promovendam asserts strongly that theology must have “a pastoral stamp” so that the teaching of the faith and the beliefs, practices, and doctrines of the Church are brought down to solving the problems of people, satisfying their hunger for God and embracing the ultimate moral demand for the transformation of the earth so that God’s will may be done on earth as it is done in heaven. 

In this light, this Congress has a missionary, evangelical, and pastoral orientation. The theme, sub-themes and presentations during the Congress will reflect this fundamental thrust.