Humanity could lose 'its home,' says cardinal while in Benin to boost Green Church Program

In Cotonou, Czerny said in his speech that the church in Benin has chosen to reach out directly or indirectly to families, parishes, dioceses, schools and universities, care and health care structures, lay movements, the economic sector and religious circles as potential waste producers and energy consumers. But, at the same time, "they are concerned by the quest to achieve sustainable development goals, including the fight against poverty ... hunger and universal access to drinking water," Czerny said.

The Green Church Program was inspired by the Songhai Regional Center, an agricultural model that was set up in Ouando, a neighborhood of Porto Novo, Benin, which was set up by Nigerian Dominican Fr. Godfrey Nzamujo almost 40 years ago.

Founded in 1985, Songhai, named after the prestigious West African empire of the 14th century, is a training farm that promotes agricultural entrepreneurship and sustainable farming practices, converting waste to wealth.

Nzamujo, the center's director, has been a professor at the University of California in Irvine and associate professor of engineering at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

The Dominican priest had seen images of drought and famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s, and he was outraged at the thought of Africa being portrayed as a continent from where nothing good could ever come. He set out to change the picture, establishing the Songhai center as a showpiece of agro-ecology.

Archbishop Houngbédji said the Green Church Program, modeled after the Songhai center is "a program that has its roots in the church," citing documents from various popes that have to do with the care of the Earth.

Czerny said carrying the Green Church Program through to the end will require "mobilization and ownership by the population."

"This is also where synergy between church and state is needed. The church could be of service to the state and the population through its teaching and research institutions, such as the Catholic University of West Africa," he said Jan. 20.

The cardinal said the Green Church Program would rely on "environmental education," particularly about waste management. But this education, he explained, would include training pastoral agents and those working in diocesan structures about "environmental, and ecological promotion, highlighting the promotion of renewable energies, and the ecological development of diocesan spaces and structures to combat climate change."

Houngbédji said that it would be "a religious aberration, a real denial of faith" for anyone to pretend to love God and at the same time "destroy his creation, the work that he himself found very good."

"And that's why, ultimately, the Green Church Program aims to invite all Christians, and by extension all people of goodwill, whether believers or not, to an ecological conversion, a dignified and responsible attitude towards the environment, our common heritage," the archbishop said.

Czerny was visiting Benin Jan. 17-20. On Jan. 18, he was welcomed at a nonprofit health center, Saint Jean, in Cotonou, where he met with the staff who provide much needed medical services for the people of the tiny African country neighboring Nigeria on the East, Togo and Burkina Faso on the West.

Czerny met separately with the bishops of Togo and Benin to discuss the challenges facing each local church. He urged during Mass Jan. 19 in Cotonou's Saint-Michel Church, that "the Synod on Synodality invites us to walk together, to journey together, to live in communion, in common participation in Christ's mission, in common discernment that enables us to find and welcome God's will."

In a region marked with religious-based violence, especially in neighboring Nigeria, Czerny said: "May our faith be a leaven of peace, love and justice."