大象传媒

Father Michel was brought up in a devout family in a devout country. He witnessed the horrors of the Second Congo War but when he was sent to France he was nevertheless shocked to find so much material and spiritual poverty there. His first posting as a missionary was working with young people separated from the parents because of violence, addiction, abuse鈥� Now he has a parish in Alsace. Or rather twelve parishes. He sings in his Peugeot 205 as he zips across the Alsatian countryside from school religion class to parish meeting to choir practice to mass and tells us about the joys and pains of being an African missionary in Europe. He misses the status priests enjoy back home. Centre of the community. Brought in to solve disputes. And the singing and dancing in church. 鈥淧eople here feel the same joy when they sing but they don鈥檛 move. It鈥檚 their way.鈥� He loves the way lay people rally round in his parish with all sorts of expert help 鈥� finding flowers for the church, doing the accounts鈥� 鈥淭hey take responsibility for their church鈥�. And he loves the choral tradition of this land whose history is more German than French. We hear too about his experience of rejection because of his ethnic background. 鈥淪ome people prefer to take communion from the hands of a white person.鈥� But above all the warm welcome he鈥檚 received from active Catholics who have become dependent on these 鈥渕issionaries-in-reverse鈥� from Poland, Vietnam and (80%) from Africa for the practice of their faith. As two bishops told Fr Michel 鈥� without the African priests, the church in France would collapse.