“If feeding means giving food, it implies much more than simply providing physical nourishment,” Cardinal Kutwa said during the Eucharistic celebration at St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus Cathedral of Bouaké Archdiocese.
Referring to St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the Patron Saint of Bouaké Archdiocese, the 78-year-old Ivorian Cardinal, whose retirement from the pastoral care of Ivory Coast’s Catholic Archdiocese of Abidjan was accepted in May 2024 explained the central place of love in the mission of the Church.
“Charity will give me the key to my vocation. I understood that if the Church had a heart, it would be burning with love. I understood that love alone drove the members of the Church to action. If love were to die out, the apostles would no longer preach the Gospel, and the martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. I understood that love encompasses all vocations. That love is everything. It embraces all times and all places. Yes, I found my place in the Church. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, thus I will be everything, and my dream will be fulfilled,” he said.
Cardinal Kutwa urged the people of God to embrace the words of St. Thérèse's as their prayer.
“I want to count on you, people of God. Be the leaven that makes the dough rise in this new dynamic with and around your new Archbishop, for each of you is considered by God as an essential and irreplaceable link in the chain of evangelization,” he said.
The 55-year-old newly installed Ivorian Archbishop is a Clergy of the Catholic Diocese of Grand-Bassam, where he was ordained a Priest in December 1997.
As a Priest, he served in various capacities, including Parish Vicar of San François Xavier, Aboisso; Secretary General of the Diocese of Grand-Bassam and Diocesan Director of PMS.
