Onaiyekan and the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and of Madagascar

by Giovanni Cubeddu

John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja (Nigeria),

John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja (Nigeria), was elected President of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) in October 2003. The young African bishops decided to set up SECAM at the time of Vatican II and it was launched in 1969 by the visit of Paul VI to Uganda. A plenary assembly of SECAM takes place every three years and includes the African cardinals and patriarchs, the presidents and the delegates of the African Episcopal Conferences, the diocesans bishops, the members of the SECAM Permanent Committee and the African members of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. The need to “restructure” the body representing the African Church as a whole was on the agenda of the latest plenary assembly.