Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
28 September 2007
Witchcraft is one of the biggest challenges facing the Catholic Church in Central African Republic, a bishop said.
Many people find "no natural explanation for death, sickness or natural disasters", and instead look for a scapegoat, who must have caused the misfortune through witchcraft, said Bishop Peter Marzinkowski of Alindao Diocese.
Suspected witches are punished and may even be killed, a German missionary recently told the German-based international Catholic pastoral charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
Bishop Marzinkowski said belief in witchcraft existed even among Christians because the faith is not yet sufficiently deeply rooted. The result is that "at the least difficulty they relapse back into their traditional way of thinking".
The bishop further attributed the persistence of belief in magic to fear. The country's social support system, he said, is "in ruins", and state-run institutions such as schools and hospitals are no longer functioning.
The money that should be flowing into development aid is mostly used to repay the country's huge foreign debt. "The repayments are strangling the country", Bishop Marzinkowski explained.
The Church must therefore accompany the people and help them to "discover the footprints of God", he said. Part of that involves helping them to "assume responsibility for their own lives".
The Church is strengthening its pastoral commitment to better convey the Good News of Christ, which rests above all on forgiveness, said Bishop Marzinkowski. "We must help the people to acquire a new image of God and man."
Many parishes are already very active in this field and exclude from the parish community those who have accused others of witchcraft, until they finally forgive those who have supposedly harmed them. But it is not an easy battle because only about 38,000 of the 240,000 inhabitants of his diocese are Catholics.
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