Youth as the Living Altar: East Africa’s Bishops Make a Four-Year Covenant of Accompaniment

In a region where six out of ten souls are under 25, the Catholic bishops of Eastern Africa have declared that the Church’s future is not a distant promise but a present responsibility. At the opening of the 21st Plenary Assembly of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA), Bishop Charles Sampa Kasonde announced that young people will be the singular pastoral priority for the next four years. This is not a program, the bishops insist, but a covenant of listening and dialogue.

“The future of the Church lies in the hands of those who are strong enough to give the coming generations reasons for living and hoping in faith,” Bishop Kasonde proclaimed during the Eucharistic celebration at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. The commitment is rooted in three spiritual objectives: to strengthen young people’s sense of belonging to the Church, to affirm that their faith is worth the effort, and to respond to the demographic reality of a continent bursting with youthful energy. “This reality calls for a preferential option for the youth,” the bishop added, echoing the reflections of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM). In a world that often treats youth as a problem to be solved, the bishops have chosen to see them as the living altar upon which the Church’s future is built.