Paulines Publications Africa Releases New Books on Family in Africa ahead of the Synod on the Family

CANAA || By Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla, Nairobi || 03 September 2015

Paulines Publications Africa has released three new books offering reflections on the family in Africa, ahead of the Synod of on the Family scheduled to take place at the Vatican next month, October 4-25, 2015.

Two of the books focus on the family while one discusses the Church as Family.

The three books include:

1. Christ’s New Homeland: Africa
2. The Church we Want: Foundations, Theology and Mission of the Church in Africa
3. African Family Today

In the book, Christ’s New Homeland: Africa, ten African Cardinals and Bishops have written about the attitudes of Africans towards marriage and the family.

These Church leaders discuss the culture and traditions of the people within their pastoral contexts. They also draw inspiration from the teaching of the Church on marriage and the family.

At a cost of US$ 4.50, the book offers unique insights into the way African look at the marriage and family institutions.

The book, The Church we Want: Foundations, Theology and Mission of the Church in Africa, is the third volume of the recently concluded three-year theological colloquium on Church, religion and society in Africa (TCCRSA), which brought together selected African Catholic Scholars from different linguistic and geographical regions of the continent as well as gender, generational, and ecclesial diversity have been gathering in Nairobi.

The discussions during the colloquium were aimed at developing, modeling, and sustaining a new and innovative methodology and process of theological reflection, research, and study at the service of the African Church and the World Church.”

At a cost of US$10.00, the book presents analyses, models, and portraits of the Church in Africa from a variety of perspectives, among them, historical, theological, ecumenical, cultural, as well as contemporary.

In the book, African Family Today, scholars and practitioners in the pastoral context of accompanying families offer their reflections on the family in Africa.

The book is an initiative of Tangaza University College. The editors of the book have put together various reflections on the reality of the family in Africa as a contribution towards the forthcoming Synod of Bishops on the family.

According to the Director of Paulines Publications Africa, Sr. Teresa Marcazzan, the books can be purchased from any of their main outlets in Africa, namely, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Sr. Marcazzan told CANAA that the books can also be purchased online using information available on the Paulines Africa website: www.paulinesafrica.org

“These books and in particular CHRIST’S NEW HOMELAND: AFRICA (can be of) very special interest (for anyone who wants) to understand and follow the works of the Synod on the Family,” Sr. Marcazzan told CANAA, clarifying that the books are quite comprehensive and include “topics and issues that will stand also after the Synod.”

“The African Church wants to make their voice heard in the Universal Church! And the African Church has a lot to say about Family life,” she also said, adding, “We shall post (the books) at once after the payment is done.”

Paulines Publications Africa is a communication project of the Daughters of St Paul, an international religious congregation using the communication media to evangelize and to promote the dignity of all people.