http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/world/africa/16pope.html?_r=1&em On Africa Trip, Pope Will Find Place Where Church Is Surging Amid Travail By RACHEL DONADIO VATICAN CITY — When Pope Benedict XVI embarks on his first trip to Africa as pontiff on Tuesday, traveling to Cameroon and Angola, he will be visiting the future of the Roman Catholic Church, if not its present. 梵蒂岡-教宗本篤十六世時，星期二開始他第一次訪問非洲，前往喀麥隆和安哥拉 With one of the world’s largest Catholic populations, estimated at 158 million, Africa is the continent where the church is at once strong — in terms of sheer numbers and devotional vitality — and weak, inevitably touched by the poverty, corruption, conflict and disease afflicting the larger society. 在非洲大陸 天主教人口，估計158百萬人 Benedict is expected to touch on both those realities in his visit, which kicks off a period of attention to Africa, culminating in October, when the world’s bishops meet for their annual monthlong synod in Rome. This year it is devoted to “The Church in Africa at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace.” 在10月，當世界的主教舉行的年度會議在羅馬舉行為期一個月。今年是專門討論“教會在 非洲事務的和解，正義與和平。 ” On the first stop in his six-day trip, in French- and English-speaking Cameroon, Benedict is expected to present the working paper for the synod, which was called by Pope John Paul II before he died in 2005. The synod is expected to touch on the church’s role in promoting democracy and social justice; “inculturation,” or finding a balance between Rome-mandated Catholic dogma and the varieties of local practice; health; and the tensions in Africa between Catholics, Muslims and the continent’s fast-growing Pentecostal population. 主教會議預計將涉及教會的作用，促進民主和社會正義; “本地化” There is a lot at stake. By 2025, one-sixth of the world’s Catholics, or about 230 million, are expected to be African. The world’s largest seminary is in Nigeria, which borders on Cameroon in western Africa, and over all, Africa produces a large percentage of the world’s priests. 到2025年，預計將非洲 有世界六分之一的天主教徒，或約230百萬人。 Africa is the continent “where the church appears most vital, appears in a phase of expansion,” said Sandro Magister, a veteran Italian Vatican journalist. “But this expansion is also very fragile.” He added that it “ shows the typical characteristics of youth and adolescence: great waves of feeling and emotion with rather weak roots.” Although the Vatican hierarchy is a deeply European institution, it too has changed over the years. Pope John XXIII appointed the first African cardinal in 1960. There are now 16 cardinals from Africa, out of 192. 現在有16個來自非洲的主教 “You sometimes hear the remark that the main problem with the Vatican is it’ s 2,000 miles too far north,” said Philip Jenkins, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and the author of “The Lost History of Christianity,” about the early history of Christianity in Africa and Asia. In his more than 25 years as pope, John Paul II made 16 trips to Africa, visiting 42 countries. In many ways, Africa would seem a lower priority for Benedict, who in his four years as pope has been deeply preoccupied with strengthening the church in Europe, where its status is increasingly diminished. 教宗若望保祿二世 在他超過25年的教宗生涯裡 16次到非洲，訪問42個國家和地區。 But Africa is important for Benedict’s vision. Compared with Europe and the United States, African churches tend to take a more traditional line on issues like homosexuality. “Not just is Christianity booming in that part of the world, it seems to be a pretty conservative kind of Catholicism,” said Professor Jenkins, of Penn State. “I think he has high hopes of the global south churches,” and sees them “as a very serious counterbalance to liberal trends in the north.” 非洲的教會似乎是一個相當保守的天主教 But the situation on the ground is rich and complex. Many local African prelates must set their own guidelines for how to balance Catholicism with the faith healing and animal sacrifice practiced by many parishioners. The Catholic Church is also concerned that tribalism could undermine its more universal authority, especially if clerics are seen as too closely tied to a particular ethnic or tribal group. Similarly, preaching the gospel in the local language could tie it to one ethnic group, yet reading it only in a formerly colonial language poses other complications. Benedict has tried to crack down on the tendency of many African priests to take wives. Addressing a meeting of African bishops in Rome in 2005, Benedict implored them “to select conscientiously candidates for the priesthood,” and to encourage them “to open themselves fully to serving others as Christ did by embracing the gift of celibacy.” 許多非洲司鐸，有娶妻子。 本篤懇求他們“要認真選擇候選人的祭司” In the same address, Benedict spoke on AIDS for the first time as pope, calling it “a cruel epidemic” that “not only kills but seriously threatens the economic and social stability of the continent.” 教宗談到愛滋病，稱這是“殘酷的流行病” ， “並非只有死亡，是嚴重威脅到經濟和社 會穩定的大陸。 He also stated the Vatican’s position forbidding the use of condoms. “The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only fail-safe way to prevent the spread of H.I.V./AIDS,” Benedict said then, adding his endorsement of “Christian marriage and fidelity” and “chastity.” 他還表示，梵蒂岡的立場禁止使用避孕套。 “傳統的教導 (“婚姻的忠誠”和“貞節”) 被證明是防止愛滋病毒/愛滋病蔓延，唯一萬無一失的方法 ”。 On his Africa trip, the pope is not expected to revisit the Vatican’s stance on condoms, according to the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. “ The position we have is that to think you can resolve AIDS with condoms is an illusion,” Father Lombardi said. Instead, he added, the church will continue to endorse education, promoting “more responsible sexuality,” within the confines of marriage. 他的非洲之行，教宗將不會提教會對避孕套的立場 發言人說 用避孕套解決愛滋病是一種幻想 教會將繼續支持促進“更負責任的性行為 In many places in Africa, including Nigeria, Catholicism and Islam are fighting for souls. In Cameroon, which has a significant Muslim population, the pope is expected to meet with Muslim clerics. 教宗將會見穆斯林神職人員。 In Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, the church is increasingly worried about losing ground to charismatic Pentecostal churches. In recent years, those churches have radically transformed the religious landscape in Latin America, which has the world’s largest Catholic population. 教會日益擔心 天主教徒逐漸流失 去了五旬節教派 In Angola, which emerged in 2002 from 25 years of civil war, Benedict is expected to meet with politicians and diplomats to speak out against corruption and assert the renewed role that the church hopes to play in fostering democracy and civil society in Africa. 在安哥拉 教宗將會見政治家和外交家大聲疾呼反對腐敗，教會希望在非洲促進民主和公 民社會。 He will also mark 500 years since Catholic missionaries began converting people in the former Portuguese colony and meet with groups promoting the role of women in Africa. 天主教在非洲傳教五百年 In his weekly angelus message on Sunday, Benedict said that on his trip to Africa he intended “to embrace the entire African continent, its thousand differences and its deep religious spirit, its ancient cultures and its difficult path toward development and reconciliation, its painful wounds and its enormous potential and hope.” 教宗說，他訪問非洲，他希望能 “擁抱整個非洲大陸，擁抱非洲1000種文化和深厚的宗教精神， 擁抱非洲古老的文化和非洲困難的發展， 擁抱非洲痛苦的傷口和非洲巨大的潛力和希望。 “ --

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