Benedict XVI went to Africa to deliver the post-synodal exhortation. Two years ago, the special synod for Africa that took place in Rome was very little covered by the media.  But it was «good work» – the pope then said – since it was able to mediate sufficiently between the political and spiritual dimensions. «And for me – the Pope said – this is also a reason for thanks because it makes the post-synodal document easier to draft». The penultimate act of that synod were the 57 final propositions delivered by the assembly of African bishops. The propositions touched on many topics including «greater ecclesial communion at all levels, encouraging cooperation within the Church», as well as an appeal to all those who are at war in Africa: «Stop the hostilities and be reconciled!» Another theme that was frequently discussed was the environment. Observing that there was «an irresponsible degradation and senseless destruction of the earth, which is ‘our mother’» the Synod Fathers noted  that «some businesses, governments and multinational and trans-national companies engage in business that pollute the environment, destroy flora and fauna, thus causing unprecedented erosion and desertification of large areas of arable land… in complicity with those who exercise political and economic leadership in Africa». The bishops also raised their voices on the issues that impact women. They rejected abortion and  so-called reproductive health rights of women, calling instead for the defense of the family and of human life.

All of these topics had been issued by the Pope during his short trip to Benin. «Africa is a continent of hope», Benedict XVI claimed. Hope is the key-word to understand the trip to Benin. As a key-speech was the one held in the Presidential Palace, on November, 19th. After the speech, the Pope moved to Ouidah, 43 kilometres far from the capital of Benin Cotonou from where – at the beginning of the 18th Century – every year 20 thousand slaves taken from all the Western Africa left to the Usa. In Ouidah, Benedict XVI finally deliver the post-synodal exhortation, Africae Munus, African Commitment. The commitment that Benedict XVI delivers to Africa is an important one. From Africa, he warns all the leaders of the world  against political corruption, scandals, instrumentalizing the name of God to justify violence and the individualism that generates despair.

Pope appeals to all political and economic leaders of African countries and the rest of the world to not to manipulate their people and not to deprive their  peoples of hope. «Do not cut them off from their future by mutilating their present! Adopt a courageous ethical approach to your responsibilities and, if you are believers, ask God to grant you wisdom!», the Pope said.

The background of African countries is filled with the Arab Spring and the recent - and Church sponsored – independence of the South Sudan. Neverthless the worries for the future of the Christians after the Arab Spring – especially in Egypt and Libya – the Pope favorably see to the claim of the people. During these last months – he said –  «many peoples have manifested their desire for liberty, their need for material security, and their wish to live in harmony according to their different ethnic groups and religions. Indeed, a new state has been born on your continent. Many conflicts have originated in man’s blindness, in his will to power and in political and economic interests which mock the dignity of people and of nature. Human beings aspire to liberty; then to live in dignity; they want good schools and food for their children, dignified hospitals to take care of the sick; they want to be respected; they demand transparent governance which does not confuse private and public interests; and above all they desire peace and justice».

Benin is an examplar country. Cardinal Bernardin Gantin is considered one of the father of the country – to him is dedicated the airport of Cotonou. And Catholicism had great part in the development of Benin, The former Archbishop of Cotonou, Isidore de Sousa, received special permission from the John Paul II to act as the effective leader of the country in the early 1990s, leading it through a transition from Marxism to democracy. Relationships between the Catholic Church and the State of Benin are wonderful, missionaries and Christian institutions make an appreciated job in the country. The 42,8 per cent of population of Benin is Christian, and the 27,1 per cent of these is Catholic. The rest is made up of faithful of other Confessions, mainly originated by the Lutheran reform. The 24,4 per cent of population is Muslim, and the rest of population belongs to ancient African creeds.

And all the representatives of those religions were sitting in front of Benedict XVI, together with the representatives of government and institution on November, 19th. The Pope contrasts the hope to the paradigm of the expert – who imposes his conclusions and proposes, at the end of the day, few useful solutions – and to the temptation to analyze the realities of Africa like a curious ethnologist or like someone who sees the vast resources only in terms of energy, minerals, agriculture and humanity («reductionist and disrespectful points of view which lead to the unhelpful “objectification” of Africa and her inhabitants»).

Hope is the key to understand two African realities. The first one deals with the sociopolitical and economical situation. The Pope says: «Human beings aspire to liberty; then to live in dignity; they want good schools and food for their children, dignified hospitals to take care of the sick; they want to be respected; they demand transparent governance which does not confuse private and public interests; and above all they desire peace and justice. At this time, there are too many scandals and injustices, too much corruption and greed, too many errors and lies, too much violence which leads to misery and to death ». It is not a ill that affect just Africa: it affects all the world. And people want to understand, they do not want to be manipulated. No policy is absolutely right and no economical policy is neutral. But both policy and economy – the Pope admonishes – has to be done for the common good.

That is why Benedict repeatedly cried out in defense of the poor. During an open-air Mass on sunday in a soccer stadium in Benin’s capital, before some 40,000 wildly enthusiastic, dancing and singing locals, he said «Jesus wanted to identify himself with the poor» and the poor deserve respect because «through them, God shows us the way to Heaven». And in the Africae Munus Benedict called the church to act as a «sentinel», denouncing situations of injustice. The pontiff also took yet another swipe at neo-con ideologies. In his opening speech of the trip, he warned Africans that an «unconditional surrender to the laws of the market and of finance» is among the pathologies of modernity they would do well to avoid.

The second reality deals with the interreligious dialogue. How many wars had been fought in the name of God? «True interreligious dialogue – the Pope said – rejects humanly self-centered truth, because the one and only truth is in God. God is Truth. Hence, no religion, and no culture may justify appeal or recourse to intolerance and violence. Aggression is an outmoded relational form which appeals to superficial and ignoble instincts. To use the revealed word, the Sacred Scriptures or the name of God to justify our interests, our easy and convenient policies or our violence, is a very grave fault».

The challenge for Africa – outlined in the post-synodal exhortation – is to free Africa from his ills. First of all, Aids, to face by providing «everyone with access to treatments and medicines, taking account of uncertain situations! The Church, indeed, has been pleading for a long time for high quality medical treatment to be made available at minimum cost to all concern ». And then, illiteracy that «represents one of the principal obstacles to development. It is a scourge on a par with that of the pandemics. True, it does not kill directly, but it contributes actively to the marginalization of the person – which is a form of social death – and it blocks access to knowledge». More: «Africa’s memory is painfully scarred as a result of fratricidal conflicts between ethnic groups, the slave trade and colonization. Today too, the continent has to cope with rivalries and with new forms of enslavement and colonization». And also the intolerable treatment to which so many children in Africa are subjected: child soldiers, child prisoners, children forced into labour, children ill-treated on account of physical or mental handicap, children said to be witches or warlocks, children said to be serpents, children sold as sex slaves, traumatized children without any future prospects.

Was it a sort of Benedict XVI’s opening to theology of liberation? There is – obviously – some more in depth reason. Leaving Benin, the Pope asked: «Why should an African country not show the rest of the world the path to be taken towards living an authentic fraternity in justice, based on the greatness of the family and of labour? May Africans be able to experience reconciliation in peace and justice!» In a few years, Africa can become the most Catholic continent in the world. The Pope bets on the awakening of Africa, because it is in that awakening that resides the awakening of the Church. The Church that must push for Truth, Reconciliation, Dialogue, Care for Human Being. And Africa – with its Truth and Reconciliation commissions, with its experience of interreligious dialogue because of the cohabitation of several creeds, with his traditional care for human being – can indicate the path to follow to all the world. Africa is a continent of hope. Even for Christianity. Now more than ever.

Egyptian situation is an example of how the religions can be used by political power. There are no religious conflicts at all, but religious belonging is used and pushed to create a social split. After the clash between soldiers and Christians that killed 26 people (a clash that came after an escalation of violence against Christian: recent attacks included the killing of Coptic youths in Moqattam and Embaba, the cutting-off the ear of a Copt, attacks on the Churches as well as preventing the governor of Qena from occupying his post because he is Christian), very few people is doubtful about the fact that – as Joannes Zakaria, Coptic Catholic Bishop of Luxur, put it - «attacks against Christians in Egypt are being incited by groups of Mubarak followers or Islamic extremist from Saudi Arabia. It is more a political matter than religious».

They had been defined «sectarian fights», but they would be fomented by the Supreme Military Council. The high military hierarchies are in some ways playing with the delicate relationship between Copt and Muslims. The appeal issued by Benedict XVI a few days after the violence that took place in Cairo was also aimed to underline this situation. The Pope said he was united in sorrow with the families of the victims and with the Egyptian people, who he said, were being torn apart by attempts to undermine the peaceful co-existence between communities in the country. Pope Benedict underlined the importance of preserving that co-existence, especially he said, at this time of transition and he urged the faithful to pray , so that Egypt can enjoy a true peace based on justice, respect for freedom and the dignity of every citizen.

One of the 26 shot dead during the clash between Christians and soldiers was a young Copt Christian. He was in Tahrir Square, as many other young people. Nobody was conscious he was Christian. Because there was no religious color in the pacific Egyptian revolution.

But now the pressures to the Supreme Military Council to withdraw the power and leave it to a civil and elected government came not just from the people of Tahrir Square, but also from the new social movements and political parties that had been generated by the revolution. The passage to a civil government has been requested by all the candidates to the presidency of Egypt and by all the parties – included the Muslim Brothers’ one. The request came out together with the request to change the electoral law, decided in a top-down way from the Military Council. Just a few days ago, the Scaf – the government of transition – decided to modify the art. 5 of the electoral law, thus yielding to the pressures. About 48 hours after the decision, Cairo was theater of violence. Journalist and witnesses speak about the repression of the Army, accused to run down the demonstrator with the vehicles and to have shot true bullets, and not just tear gas. Why this disproportionately high reaction?

Religions play an important role on the balance of the region. After the soldiers attack against Christians, a dangerous threshold has been passed. And it has been passed through the use of salafists – linked to radical Islam –  to let the authority that manage the security of the Countries – as the Army and the old State Security – renewed in the name, not in the men – to push on stability and safety of the country. The strategy has not changed after the Arab Spring. At the beginning of 2011, in Alexandria of Egypt, an attack had been moved toward a Coptic Church. After the revolution, it had been discovered that the attack had been directly inspired by the powerful Habib el Adly, Minister of the Intern of Mubarak government now imprisoned in Tora and accused of the killing of about a thousand people in Tahrir Square and in all the Egypt during the Thawra.

The strategy had always been the same in Egypt, where the Coptic Community have faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup d’état led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until recently, Christians were required to obtain presidential approval for even minor repairs in churches. Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, Copts continue to face many obstacles and restrictions in building new churches. These restrictions do not apply for building mosques.

The Coptic community has been targeted by hate crimes and physical assaults. The most significant was the 2000–01 El Kosheh attacks, in which Muslims and Christians were involved in bloody inter-religious clashes following a dispute between a Muslim and a Christian. International Christian Concern reported that in February 2001, Muslims burned a new Egyptian church and the homes of 35 Christians, and that in April 2001 a 14-year-old Egyptian Christian girl was kidnapped because her parents were believed to be harboring a person who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

In 2006, one person who was claimed to be both drunk and mad, attacked three churches in Alexandria, left one dead and from 5 to 16 injured, although the attacker was not linked to any organization. In May 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported increasing «waves of mob assaults» by Muslims against Copts, forcing many Christians to flee their homes. Despite frantic calls for help, the police typically arrived after the violence was over. The police also coerced the Copts to accept “reconciliation” with their attackers to avoid prosecuting them, with no Muslims convicted for any of the attacks. In Marsa Matrouh, a mob of 3,000 Muslims attacked the city’s Coptic population, with 400 Copts having to barricade themselves in their church while the mob destroyed 18 homes, 23 shops and 16 cars.

These are number that are the nitid picture of what the Pope wrote in the last message for the World Day of Peace. The Pope singled out Christians as the religious group that suffers from the most persecution on Thursday, denouncing lack of freedom of worship as an «intolerable» threat to world security. The message reflected a pressing concern by Benedict in recent months for the plight of Christian minorities in parts of the world, especially in the Middle East.

Christian minorities that are on the move. The Egyptian Census of 1897 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 14.7%( 13.2% Christians, 1.4% Jews). The Egyptian Census of 1986 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 6.1%( 5.7% Christians, 0% Jews). The decline in the Jewish representation is interpreted through the creation of the state of Israel, and the subsequent emigration of the Egyptian Jews. There is no explanation for a 55% decline in the percentage of Christians in Egypt.It has been suggested that Egyptian censuses held after 1952 have been politicised to under-represent the Christian population.

But the decrease of Christian population is a matter of fact for the whole Middle East, as pointed out in the recent Synod dedicated to the Middle East.

The scenario outlined in Egypt risks to be the most authoritative forecast of what will be the situation of the Middle East. Everything is truly complex, and deals with religions, policy and the regional balance. What is going on is really well pictured out by the story of Hani Bushra, that explains the use of the mob from who wants to assure order and stability. Here’s an extract of his story:

«We reached the officer (rank of general), and the first thing that I did was to show him my U.S. passport and told him that I am now under his protection. I told him that I was attacked because I was a Christian. One of the men who is a policeman but wearing civilian clothing began to talk to the general that I was a Christian and that I institigated the mob to attack me and that I am carrying weapons in my bag. The officer, who had seen my passport, told him to shut up. This policeman in the civilian clothing seemed to be the coordinator between the mob and the police. The general pushed me back behind the cordon of CSF soldiers, but I wanted to get my phone back, and so I went out again. The person who had stolen my phone was right there, and I told the general that I wanted my phone back. As I was talking to the general, a group of policemen were around me, one of them was behind me poking my butthole with his stick. I turned around and said that if you want to fuck me in the ass, you should be man enough to fuck me in public. At that point the policeman in civilian clothing who had earlier clashed with me called me a liar, and the general once again told him to shut up. I was assigned a young officer to protect me. My phone was gone, and they wanted to protect me until it was safe. I met two young officers, a first and second lieutenants, who were very respectful and were concerned for me. I told them that I hope that when they grew in their rank, they would always remain this professional. They were so nice that one of them let me use his phone so that I can call Happy and tell him that I was okay».