For the president of the Episcopal Conference of Angola and São Tomé (CEAST), José Manuel Imbamba, on the eve of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe celebrating 50 years of independence "it is time to stop for a profound examination of national conscience".
The official argued that it is necessary to analyze how to "overcome the cyclical and unjustifiable problems" that are experienced and that keep society "permanently short of responsible, participatory and inclusive citizenship of integral development and the authentic republican State".
According to the Catholic archbishop, Angola, specifically, "needs to wake up from the anesthetizing sleep of partisanship, fanatical militancy, the culture of flattery, intrigue, arrogance, lack of intelligence and verbal violence".
Angola also needs to wake up and get rid of "physical, psychological and spiritual violence, insensitivity and lack of commitment to the good of all citizens".
"We must have the courage to demolish the ideological, cultural and axiological bases that do not generate or propagate the dignity of the human person, plural coexistence, social friendship, meritocracy and the consequent human, social, economic and cultural progress", he noted.
José Manuel Imbamba, who was speaking this Wednesday at the opening of the 2nd Annual Plenary Assembly of CEAST, which runs until Monday, in Luanda, said that it is also necessary to have courage to make the flag of the country float more than that of the political parties.
"That they only aim at power for power's sake", he noted, adding that "you have to have the courage not to narrow, reduce and condition the lives of citizens in political parties".
Political parties in Angola were even invited by the president of CEAST to "rediscover the mystique, beauty and ethics of politics, making it a noble mission, a selfless service in favor of the good of citizens, regardless of their party colors".
The archbishop of Saurimo, in the Angolan province of Lunda Sul, also defended that social life requires that each one feels "an active subject in the construction and transformation of the social, political, economic and cultural edifice".
For this reason, he continued, society, instead of massifying, "diluting the self", should personalize, enhancing personal dignity, that is, "realizing the self in the we, instead of excluding and discriminating, it should include, involve and welcome".
"Instead of giving life to intolerance, pride and arrogance, it should favor fruitful dialogue, enriching and understanding humility, instead of promoting fear, hopelessness, discredit and lack of commitment, it should promote security, trust , hope and a sense of belonging", he exhorted.
The third year of the Triennium on Children (2023-2024), report by the episcopal commissions, legal recognition of ecclesiastical entities and the revision of the CEAST statutes are some of the topics addressed in this plenary of Angolan Catholic bishops.
