For Faith to Grow, “we must return to the Small Christian Communities”: Catholic Bishop in Tanzania

AMECEA launched the Golden Jubilee Year of SCCs last August to assess the status of this new way of being church in the region. Starting from the 19 August 2024, the people of God in the nine member countries of AMECEA were to reflect on the goals that Catholic Bishops in the region had when they founded SCCs in 1973.

In his keynote address at the launch in Malawi, Bishop Rogatus Kimaryo of Tanzania’s Catholic Diocese of Same and Chairman for AMECEA Pastoral Department said that the yearlong celebrations were to reawaken the spirituality of SCCs in the region.

“By December 2023, it will be 50 years since the Small Christian Communities were adopted by the AMECEA Region as a pastoral priority,” Bishop Kimaryo said at the launch of the Golden Jubilee celebrations of SCCs in AMECEA on 19 August 2023 in the Catholic Diocese of Dedza, Malawi.

In his June 26 homily, Bishop Pisa recalled that in establishing SCCs, AMECEA leadership had in mind, among other reasons, the need to create an easier way of reaching Christians, strengthening their faith, and making them participate well in pastoral work.

“Small Christian Communities can inform the Priest which family or person needs to be visited, needs to be strengthened more, and who is suitable to be a leader,” he said, adding that “leadership in church starts from the family” and that the SCC “helps in identifying who is suitable to be a Parish leader.”

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To illustrate the essential place SCCs have in the region of AMECEA since their inception, the Tanzania-born Member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (O.M.F. Cap) said, “Pastoral experts conducted research, shared the idea with us; our fathers evaluated it again, and brought it to us, and up to now, nothing can surpass the Small Christian Communities; and this is how the church is built.”

“There is nothing better so far for spreading our faith to the people than the Small Christian Communities,” the newly elected President of the Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) emphasized. 

He went on to thank the people of God in the nine member countries of AMECEA for embracing SCCs and for leading by example in the Eastern Africa region.

For SCCs to prosper, Bishop Pisa said, “we must do things together; we must walk together. No one should have any problems if we all decide to walk together and do everything together.”

“Let us pray together; let us learn the word of God together, live together, and celebrate the Sacraments together,” the Local Ordinary of Lindi Diocese since his Episcopal Ordination in June 2022 following his appointment in April 2022 said.

He further implored, “Let us pray to Christ during the celebration of 50 years of the presence of Small Christian Communities, to guide us to be together and continue proclaiming Christ.” 

Nicholas Waigwa contributed to the writing of this story

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