ACI Africa’s 5th Anniversary: How EWTN Fulfilled Dreams of Catholic Bishops in Africa

The Local Ordinary of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Oyo said that for many years, the Church in Africa “desired media entities which would support its evangelization mission, project its pastoral profile as Family of God, and promote a healthy synodal exchange in the Church all over the continent while ‘helping Africa to tell her own story’ to the world.”

“I congratulate EWTN and all its visionaries who by establishing ACI Africa, acknowledged the importance of the testimony and pastoral experience of the Church in Africa and so, invested commendably in amplifying the voice of the Church here,” Bishop Badejo said.

He went on to say that the growth of the Catholic Church in Africa has been manifested in the continent’s contribution to the ongoing process of the Synod on Synodality.

Also manifest is Africa’s witness to the sanctity of life and the sacrament of marriage, Bishop Badejo said, adding that the Church in Africa has brought cherished African values of solidarity and the joy of living to the entire world. 

ACI Africa was officially launched on 17 August 2019 to provide free and timely news reports on happenings in Africa from a Catholic perspective.

Since then, ACI Africa has given media visibility to plans and actions of Catholic Church leaders, individually and collectively in their respective Diocesan, national, regional, continental, and Congregational forums. 

Through its various social media networks, which include the English (www.aciafrica.org) and French (www.aciafrique.org) websites, Facebook, Instagram, X (former Twitter), and free email subscriptions, the Nairobi-based continental news service has also given media visibility and amplified activities of individual Catholics and institutions at the grassroots in Africa, where statistics show significant growth in numbers and the continent gradually becoming the axis of Catholicism.

ACI Africa has published over 11,000 news stories on each of our two websites, where it has received 1.4 million users. The news service has gathered more than 300,000 followers on social media and received over 60 million social media impressions on Facebook, X, and Instagram.

In the last five years, ACI Africa has continued to collaborate with its sister agencies including ACI Prensa, ACI Stampa, ACI Digital, ACI MENA, CNA, CNA Deutsch, NCRegister, EWTN NewsInDepth, and EWTN News Nightly, among others.

In his address at the August 9 anniversary celebration, ACI Africa’s Editor in Chief, Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla, noted that the news reports and feature stories of the five-year-old service of EWTN News had significantly contributed to the increased awareness of the activities of the Church in Africa as well as those of the universal Church.

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ACI Africa’s reports, Fr. Don Bosco said, “have enhanced the sense of Catholic thought and culture in the life of Catholics on the continent and beyond, especially in collaborating with the other current affairs services of EWTN News”.

“Today, we are grateful to God for the five-year milestone and to EWTN Global Catholic Network for facilitating the telling of Africa’s stories by Africans,” he said, and implored, “May God continue blessing the apostolate of ACI Africa so that the mission of EWTN Global Catholic Network, currently the largest Catholic media apostolate globally, reaching more than 435 million homes in 160 countries and territories, is effectively enhanced and ultimately achieved.”

The Kenyan-born member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (CSSp./Spiritans/Holy Ghost Fathers) shared a message from EWTN News President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), Montse Alvarado, who had said, “EWTN News and EWTN see Africa as the present— important to us now— not some far away future of the Church. This is the deep well of faith the global church is drawing from, and we are all grateful to God for it and will continue to do all we can to support it.”

In his address at the anniversary celebration on August 9, Bishop Badejo hailed ACI Africa for emerging “as a jewel of the communication apostolate of the Church in Africa.”

“The launch of ACI Africa, formalized on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of 2019 has turned out to be a momentous event for the Church,” the delegate of SECAM at the anniversary celebration said. 

“Within these five eventful years ACI Africa has made good progress, reporting events in Africa and its islands from a Catholic perspective, in English and French, and looking to do so soon in Portuguese, thus catering to the three official language groups of SECAM,” he said.

The member of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication since his appointment in December 2021 noted that ACI Africa’s apostolate of giving free information from Catholic Dioceses, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL), Clergy, and Laity, from Africa to the entire world had greatly enhanced the exposure and awareness of the work and life of the Church in Africa.

The service of EWTN news in Africa, Bishop Badejo said, has inspired numerous pastoral agents and the faithful, who he said now know that news about the simple evangelizing and pastoral activities they engage in at the very grassroots can reach any part of the world.

He described ACI Africa as “a flagship Catholic news agency in Africa”, which he said immensely supports the theme of the Synod on Synodality about people of God moving together more in participation, communion and mission.

“I have heard it said often that the means of media distribution can change but good journalism cannot change,” Bishop Badejo said, and added, “I am delighted to say that ACI Africa has improved both the means and content of good Catholic journalism in these five years.”

“Thank God for ACI Africa and I pray with the prayer of the Synod, ‘May the Holy Spirit teach us the way we must go from now onwards, and how we are to pursue this vision’,” the Nigerian Catholic Bishop, who started his Episcopal Ministry in October 2007 as Coadjutor Bishop of Oyo said.