South Africa: Bishop Sipuka reflects on recent ad limina visit to Pope Francis.

Sheila Pires - Pretoria.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) members were in Rome for the 12 June to 17 June ad limina visit. During the weeklong visit, the Bishops, together with the Archbishop Emeritus of Durban, Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, O.F.M., met with several officials of the Holy See’s Dicasteries. The Bishops also unexpectedly met with Pope Francis, who had just been discharged from the hospital.

Financial constraints in mission territories

Bishop Sipuka, who is President of the Conference, further shared brief reports from meetings with officials of the various Dicasteries. At the meeting with the Dicastery for Evangelization, Section for the First Evangelization and New Particular Churches, the Bishop said one of the major issues addressed was financial sustainability and assistance to mission churches.

“One major point of discussion was the issue of the growing inability of this Dicastery to provide financial and material assistance to mission areas like ours as well as the need for reports of project funds received,” said Bishop Sipuka.

He added, “We left the meeting with a heightened awareness of the need to beef up the self-sustenance drive in our Conference because overseas coffers from which we traditionally got support are on the verge of drying up.” Another matter was the “the point of encouraging priests and laity of our Conference to be solicitous of the Church’s worldwide mission and participate in it through prayer, resources, and offering to be missionaries,” Bishop Sipuka emphasised.

Ad limina visit: Pope Francis handing gifts to Bishop Sipuka.

An unscheduled meeting with the Pope

Before the ad limina visit, each diocese prepared a comprehensive report, known as the Quinquennial Report, to present to the Pope. Bishop Sipuka expresses joy and gratitude for meeting with Pope Francis hours after he had been discharged from Gemelli Policlinic Hospital following an abdominal surgery on 7 June.

“The crown of the visit was the meeting with the Pope, which we had given up on it happening because, for most days of our visit, he was in the hospital for an abdominal operation and came out on the morning of the last day of our stay,” said Bishop Sipuka.

“We were resigned to coming back without seeing him. But then, to our joy, we had a word at lunch that the Pope would see us at 14.00h. We thought we would greet him and let him go to rest, but no, he was in high spirits and spent an hour with us, responding to our questions and taking a picture with each of us,” narrated the Mthatha Bishop.