Need for Missionaries – Bishops Collaboration Marks Golden Jubilee of RSCK in Nairobi

“Sometimes I hear people saying that the religious and the Bishops … really don't work together, which may not be true, but I know it is true; sometimes in planning of our activities we don't make reference to what our Bishops outline,” Malawian-born Fr. Kaufa said.

“Sometimes you find the religious going in one direction and the Bishops are going in the other direction and sometimes we are just repeating apostolates without consultation among ourselves,” Fr. Kaufa, a Montfort Missionary continued, justifying the need for what he described as “journeying together, working together, collaboration and solidarity.”

“AMECEA stands for the solidarity of all bishops in the entire region. I want to believe also RSCK stands for solidarity and collaboration,” the Montfort Missionary who heads the AMECEA Social Communications department said and added, “When we work together and journey together, our witness is strong.”

He underscored the need to be prophetic in Africa through authentic witnessing saying, “We can only be prophetic by being witnesses of love and unity; we can only be prophetic if we stand together each of us by his or her charism but journeying together as one family of God.”

In an earlier interview with ACI Africa, RSCK Chairman, Fr. Paul Sila OFM Cap. confirmed the solidarity between his conference and KCCB saying, "We collaborate with the Bishops to continue the work of evangelization. We see ourselves as an arm of the Church and KCCB is the overall, with the bishops whom we are under."

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"We collaborate with them (Bishops) where they need the help of the religious, we are there to fill the gap," Fr. Sila reiterated.

On his part, the Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya and South Sudan Archbishop Hubertus van Megen highlighted the “great independence” that Canon law gives to religious orders and societies of apostolic life.

“Many religious congregations are very protective of that independence towards the diocese,” Archbishop van Megen told ACI Africa in an interview at the RSCK jubilee celebration and added, “This at times complicates cooperation between the two.”

“It would be good if religious congregations who are within the diocese would have a free and spontaneous cooperation with the Bishop of that place,” the Dutch Prelate concluded.