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MESSAGE
FROM THE INTERNATIONAL PRAESES
"Adolph Kolping - a sign of God's love for the people"
Travel Impressions of the General Praeses.
It is a discrepancy that I experience quite often during my journeys abroad. I come from a country with political and economic stability, and I visit people who definitely have only one ambition: TO SURVIVE!!! This applies in particular to the living conditions in Rwanda, a small country in east-central Africa, which I visited in October of 2007.
Who does not remember the genocides of the 1960s and 1990s, which put this country on the map? About 8% of the total population was killed in brutal massacres. Even now, ten years later, the memories of the atrocities are still vivid in these people.
The Praesides who attended the conference in the Rwandan capital Kigali suggested that it would be better if I remained silent on this chapter of Rwandan history. The memories are still alive, the shed blood has not dried the wounds have not healed. This was the message I was given while trying to talk about the genocide.
But this is exactly where Kolping is launching its work!
National Vice-Praeses Father Festus explained the particular importance of the Kolping work here in Rwanda. The main purpose is unification and conciliation. What Rwandan society as a whole could not achieve smaller groups will now achieve.
This reconciliation within the ecclesiastical context is also difficult and complicated. Too many ecclesiastical member (priests, members of an order and catechists) began to feel guilty and were thus instruments of those who aspired to money and power.
Normality is unthinkable in this country. Besides the important work of reconciliation there is the burden of poverty, hunger and disease. In addition to this, Rwanda is at war with its neighboring country of Congo, while at the same time absorbing hordes of Congolese refugees.
All endeavor to make a new start and thereby rely on the solidarity of all Kolping friends in the African border countries and on the international partnership network of KOLPING INTERNATIONAL. The one-day seminar made it perfectly clear: We have to carry on with our, efforts to strengthen the spiritual basis of our Kolping work. Somebody believing in a God who loves mankind and in the good Samaritan who comes by at the right moment, is not likely to raise a knife to cut his neighbors throat.
In March of 2008 I will travel once again to Kigali, this time to celebrate the official founding of Kolping Rwanda as a National Kolping Association. It is a cause for celebration and congratulations, which at the same time enables us to formulate again our hope with the words of Blessed Adolph Kolping: “Only better men can make a better world.”
International Praeses of the International Kolping Society
Msgr. Axel Werner
International Praeses of the International Kolping Society
