Ethiopia to host the 19th Plenary Assembly of AMECEA

Preparations are already underway in Ethiopia for the 19th Plenary Assembly of the grouping of the Bishops’ conferences of eastern Africa, AMECEA to be held in Addis Ababa in mid-2018.

This is according to a report filed-in to Vatican Radio’s English Service for Africa by Makeda Yohannes, the Communications and Public Relations Officer at the Ethiopia Catholic Secretariat in Addis Ababa.

According to Makeda, Ethiopia is already well on track to host the 19th AMECEA Plenary Assembly that is scheduled to be held in 2018.  The preparatory committee working on this says the groundwork has already begun, with the setting up of 11 working sub committees.

Fr. Hagos Hayish, the Secretary General of the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat told Makeda that the committees comprise Catholics from all walks of life and from various professional backgrounds and experiences.

The Terms of Reference of each of the committees have already been designed and approved. The preparatory committees will be launched on 26 July 2015, during the official closing ceremony of the Ethiopian Catholic Bishops’ Conference Golden Jubilee. Fr. Hagos noted that Catholics in Ethiopia are very enthusiastic about AMECEA coming to Ethiopia adding, “This is also an opportunity for promoting the Pastoral and Social Ministry of the Catholic Church in Ethiopia and increased evangelization,” he underlined.

Fr. Hagos expressed his hope that the AMECEA Plenary will bring more benefits to the Church in Ethiopia. “We hope that this will fuel the efforts of canonising Blessed Gebremichael, an Ethiopian Martyr who was a student of St. Justin de Jacobis and one of the first Ethiopian Catholic Martyrs. We also hope it might create an opportunity for our Holy Father Pope Francis to visit Ethiopia,” the Secretary General said.

Ethiopia accepted to host the meeting of bishops during the Executive Board meeting of AMECEA, held at its secretariat in Nairobi at the end of May. Speaking to AMECEA online news at the time, Bishop of Adigrat,  Tesfaselassie Medhin said the Ethiopian Catholic Bishops Conference accepted the invitation to host the meeting with joy. He said, “Preparing the AMECEA Plenary is “quite a task in terms of logistics and organisational activities” but that it is also an event of many “blessings and graces” because it brings together Church leaders and their collaborators to discuss issues that are of concern to the Catholic Church in the region.

AMECEA, the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa is a Catholic service organization for the national Episcopal Conferences of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Djibouti and Somalia are affiliate members.

Source: http://en.radiovaticana.va/