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Catholic Bishop in Angola Cautions Parents against Child Labor, Advocates for Virtues

Bishop Estêvão Binga, Auxiliary Bishop of Angola’s Benguela Diocese. Credit: Benguela Diocese

The Auxiliary Bishop of Angola’s Benguela Diocese has cautioned parents against child labor in the Southern African nation.

In his homily during Holy Mass at the Our Lady of Fatima Cathedral of Benguela Diocese, Bishop Estêvão Binga advocated for the practice of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.

Children are a gift from God and should be well looked after, “not just for their own sake, nor just for the sake of their parents, but for the sake of the Church and society,” Bishop Binga said during the January 14 Eucharistic celebration.

He lamented that “some parents have children as instruments of labour, like animals, standing still, in order to survive.”

The Angolan Catholic Bishop faulted the tendency to think of children as a source of workforce in family units, saying, “Poor people in particular often like to have many children, saying that at least some will help us; some go to work in the fields, others in the pastures.”

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“Parents who use their children as a source of income for the family go so far as to refuse help from benefactors to take on the responsibility or adoption of their children, because they prefer to continue exploiting their children,” he lamented.

The Auxiliary Bishop of Benguela, who started his Episcopal Ministry in February 2022 following his November 2021 appointment urged parents to “be available and generous to their children in order to welcome the realization of God's plan for their children.”

He went on to urge family members to make their homes caring schools and centers of catechesis, adding, “When there is good organization in families, there is faith, there is hope and there is true love.”

Families, the 57-year-old Catholic Church leader said, are “the first schools that teach even the sign of the cross. There are many connections and values that are not learned in catechesis; the child already brings them from home.”

João Vissesse is an Angolan Journalist with a passion and rich experience in Catholic Church Communication and Media Apostolate.