Joseph Meaney, April 21-May 3, 2008.

Africa is the fastest-growing region for Human Life International. It is impressive to note that among the French-speaking countries, we are now strongly present in 11 nations, when we were only present in Cameroon just a few years ago. George Wirnkar and I are constantly on-the-go with African missionary trips that are immensely rewarding. We are received with open arms by the seminary rectors, bishops, and newly activated pro-life leaders. Along with these trips to specific countries, we host one big conference every year in Francophone Africa. The third annual HLI Seminarian Institute was a big success once again. We decided to hold it in Bamenda, Cameroon, from April 24-27. The two previous institutes in Benin and the Republic of the Congo required George Wirnkar to coordinate them from a distance. This time we brought seminarians from throughout Francophone Africa to George's beloved home of Cameroon.

A big reason for our choice of location for the institute was the blessing of receiving the high patronage of Archbishop Cornelius Esua of Bamenda, Cameroon. He celebrated our opening mass with a great deal of enthusiasm and made it possible for HLI to train the seminarians at the beautiful Paul VI Memorial Centre in his archdiocese. We reflected that this facility was most appropriately named, since our training focused on the teachings of Humanae vitae in this 40^th anniversary year of Pope Paul VI's prophetic encyclical letter on contraception. Archbishop Esua is a great friend of HLI. He is a profoundly humble and gentle person who believes that preaching the Gospel of Life is a high priority for the Church.

Most of the 120 seminarians attending the HLI institute came from several Cameroonian seminaries, but a total of 11 French-speaking nations were represented. We were especially happy to have a seminarian from Senegal, which is a new country for HLI. We set a new record for international participation, and everything points to the 2009 HLI Seminarian Institute being even larger. Our pro-life expansion encompasses more and more countries in the region all the time.

HLI CAMEROON UNIVERSITY STUDENT GROUP SAVES LIVES

Something new this year at the seminarian institute was a large contingent of university students. Over the years, George Wirnkar has fostered HLI groups at several Cameroonian universities. The young people show pro-life films and host lectures and activities. I was very moved by the testimony of a student leader who shared the story of two young mothers who decided not to have abortions after seeing a presentation of the HLI group on their campus. Some of the pro-life groups in Cameroon are in medical and nursing schools. It is vital that we reach the future healthcare professionals in Africa, because they are heavily targeted by population control and pro-abortion propaganda. 

Another improvement to the institute this year was expanding the quantity and range of materials distributed to the participants. In 2007 we focused on supplying pro-life films and our book The Case Against Condoms. For 2008 we continued to give away films and expanded the amount of free literature. We gave out many copies of a French translation of Fr. Paul Marx's excellent pamphlet, "From Contraception to Abortion."  They also appreciated an excellent publication against contraception by Msgr. Cormac Burke, "Life and Love in the Conjugal Act."  We also gave out prayercards for women wounded by abortion, as well as "I am a responsible boy" & "I am a responsible girl" cards for young people.

For several years seminarians have asked us to provide them with "study editions" of the great magisterial documents on the life issues. George put together a book with Humanae vitae, Evangelium vitae, Veritatis splendor, and Donum vitae. The seminarians eagerly snapped up the hundreds of copies we had on-hand. It is our goal to get copies of all these Church documents into the hands of every seminarian in Africa. If our supporters continue their generous help, this goal will be possible. As it was, our seminarians for life returned home to their various countries with literally a metric ton of pro-life publications and materials.

PREBORN BABY MODELS SAVING LIVES IN AFRICA

I am very proud that HLI's international treasury of pro-life knowledge is being used to save lives all over the world. HLI Austria and several other HLI affiliates have for several years now used the small medical models of the preborn child at 10 weeks of pregnancy as a tangible way to illustrate the humanity of the fetus. Most surgical abortions take place when the young baby is about this old and roughly 2 inches long. Pregnant mothers who see a realistic model of the infant they are carrying often reconsider having an abortion. They are quite cute, with the preborn child sucking his thumb as babies do at that age.

Now, Human Life International has brought these models to Africa. Mr. Ernest Kanjam demonstrated to the seminarians and other participants at the institute how he makes these little sculptures using special molds and plaster. They are incredibly inexpensive to produce. HLI provides the molds to make them, and then our local pro-life leaders make and distribute them. We handed out copies to the attendees and gave them molds to be brought back to their seminaries and countries. HLI will be increasing our production of these simple baby molds until there is no corner in Africa where these great resources are not being produced and disseminated. They are an excellent teaching aid in schools and for pro-life instruction. I have seen classrooms full of teenage girls and boys with eyes open wide in wonder at the sight of these sculptures. They will never accept the propaganda that the preborn child is a "blob of tissue" that the anti-lifers present.

Two couples presenting at the HLI institute received their formation at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Cotonou, Benin. All these Catholic JPII Insitutes provide marvelous pro-life formation, and there are now 11 of them spread around the world on all continents. The JPII Institute for French-speaking nations located in Benin is producing wonderful results. Jean-Emmanuel & Thérèse Ngamo and Irénée & Aicha Kola enriched our presentations by sharing with us their experiences in promoting strong prayerful families, the correct pastoral approach to fighting AIDS, and teaching Natural Family Planning (NFP). They really enhanced our discussions of how important it is for parish priests to minister to the pro-life needs of the families in their care. Clear and persuasive preaching and programs on the fundamental issues of respect for life and conjugal morality are fundamental requirements in the modern world if a parish is to really serve the needs of it members.

Sr. Sheila McElroy, a missionary from Ireland, emphasized the importance of reaching young people and convincing them to change their behavior. Sadly, anti-life attitudes and Western sexual immorality is influencing the youth of Africa through the mass media. A particularly worrying trend is young female university students exchanging sexual favors for money to pay their tuition and fees, as well as living expenses. Fr. Ernest Tubuo addressed the increasingly necessary ministry of post-abortion healing and reconciliation. Even if abortion is generally illegal and culturally unacceptable, some people still obtain them. He did a great job of describing the incredible suffering of African mothers who obtained abortions and bitterly regretted this soul-destroying choice afterwards.

The 2008 HLI Francophone Africa Seminarian Institute concluded with a rousing standing ovation to thank our HLI Francophone Africa coordinator, Mr. George Wirnkar for all his labor in organizing this conference. He worked for months to get permission from seminary rectors and bishops to have their young men attend and then to organize their travel documents. We had to make sure the institute did not conflict with exams or other key formation events.

At our institute, we unveiled a new resource for the Francophone section of Seminarians for Life International. George Wirnkar created and is administering an Internet blog dedicated to pro-life seminarians. Now, all the French-speaking seminarians in SFLI can communicate with each other as a group. We can also post announcements and important documents for them to read. Hopefully, this technological instrument will greatly increase our ability to exchange information. The fact that it costs very little is an extra bonus.

NEXT SFLI INSTITUTE IN TOGO 2009

As we move across the West African region with the HLI Seminarian Institutes, the host countries are enriched in a special way. We hope that Togo will be specially blessed in the summer of 2009, when we do our training conference there. Shortly after ratifying the infamous Maputo Protocol of the African Union, Togo's national legislature rushed through a law legalizing abortion. The Togolese people are very pro-life and indignant about this crime. The bishops and priests have all received pro-life materials from HLI and are leading a strong campaign to reverse this unjust law. Sadly, democratic institutions are weak in Togo, and it will take a great deal of societal pressure to reverse the government's position. 

We took advantage of being in Cameroon to visit the HLI Seminarians for Life International group at St. Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary in Bambui. We attended Sunday Mass with the 178 seminarians there-most impressive in their immaculate white cassocks. George Wirnkar spent several years in formation at St. Thomas Aquinas before discerning his vocation to married life. The full student assembly came together in their auditorium to hear us speak. We began by noting all the excellent pro-life activities taking place in their pro-life group. The SFLI members assemble to pray the rosary for the defense of life. They also get together for small group discussions and debates, as well as pro-life presentations. Their seminary newsletter is a model of scholarship and zeal for the respect due to every innocent human life. The defense of human life is also carried out into the community by seminarians, as they work in parishes during holidays in the academic year.

I had the impression that a professional group was performing when George and I heard a brief concert by the SFLI choir at St. Thomas Aquinas. These talented seminarians have composed some remarkable and moving pro-life songs. They even have marching tunes for use in walks for life, while others could be appropriate for liturgical use. George and I are exploring the possibility of recording and distributing a CD with the best pro-life songs in their repertoire. It is interesting that Brian Clowes and I have found that pro-lifers in many countries have composed some wonderful music. A possible future pro-life project will be to assemble an international medley of songs in several languages.

The road back to Douala goes through beautiful countryside, literally bursting with agricultural plenty. Banana and tea plantations go on for miles. More ominous are the enormous rubber tree plantations from which, among other things, latex condoms are produced. We were forced to stop a few times on the main road by police officers who clearly wanted bribes, but, thank the Lord, we made it through without paying anything.

CONTRADICTORY MESSAGE ON AIDS IN CAMEROON

Almost all the villages we saw driving through Cameroon featured a strange kind of "signpost" along their main road. On its three arms the sign featured the following messages:

"100% Abstinence or 100% Condom"

"100% HIV Testing Before Marriage"

"100% HIV Testing With Each Pregnancy"

The last two parts of the message are fine, but the first part is completely illogical. It advocates both abstinence and condoms-as if one was a back-up plan for the other. Some villages had signs in French and others were in English. The likely explanation for the confused message is the requirement from the US government that some of the US money for AIDS prevention be used for the abstinence message. Cameroonians may be excused if they reach the conclusion that math skills are truly declining in the West. USAID and others seem to think that 100% of two mutually contradictory things, abstinence and condoms, will add up to 100% safety from AIDS. In fact, the 100% condom message was largely responsible for the incredible increase in AIDS that took place in the 1980s and 1990s through much of Sub-Saharan Africa and in other parts of the world, such as Thailand.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA WELCOMES HLI FOR THE FIRST TIME

Frequently, George and I travel together as a team in Africa. This time, however, we parted ways to cover more territory. He flew to Senegal, and I went to Equatorial Guinea. In both cases we were undertaking the very first HLI pro-life missionary journeys to these countries. Another reason for me to go alone to Equatorial Guinea is that George is not fluent in Spanish, the main language there. They are, in fact, the only Spanish-speaking nation in West Africa.

Spain created a small trading post there in the late 18^th century, but they were much more interested in developing their colonies in the Americas and the Philippines. During the tide of decolonization, in 1968, they were granted independence. Within a few decades, very large off-shore oil fields were discovered. Equatorial Guinea is now Sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil-exporter, which has greatly increased the importance of this little tropical nation. Their average per capita income is very high for Africa, but unfortunately, the financial blessings from the black gold are not divided very equitably.

On landing at the international airport in the capital city of Malabo, located on the island of Bioko, it was immediately clear that Guineans are better-off than most of their African neighbors. As in natural resources-rich Gabon, there was no crowd of persons trying to earn a tip by carrying your bag out to the parking lot. I was happy that US citizens do not require a visa for travel to Equatorial Guinea, but the many foreign oil-industry workers have inflated the cost of lodging. It took some searching to find a hotel with reasonable prices.

HLI's PRO-LIFE REPUTATION PRECEDES US

My first stop the next morning was to call on Archbishop Ildefonso Obama Obono. Imagine my surprise to learn that "Obama" is a fairly common name in Equatorial Guinea! I came well-introduced with a letter from Archbishop Esua of Bamenda, Cameroon, who knows Archbishop Obama well. It was a very warm welcome. As I began to describe HLI's work to the archbishop, he informed me that he knew all about Human Life International, even though no representative had yet gone to his country. It seems that HLI's pro-life reputation now precedes us before we arrive. Archbishop Obama has read our publications in Spanish and has heard about the good work we are doing through his brother bishops. This was an auspicious beginning to our meeting!

Equatorial Guinea needs HLI's help, Archbishop Obama insisted. Although about 90% of Guineans are baptized Catholics and abortion is illegal, the cultural drift there is going in an anti-life direction. They have only 108 priests to minister to 548,000 faithful.¹ They have many young vocations to the priesthood, but the Church is still critically low on clergy. I was invited to address the priests in the capital city and found out there were only 12!

Equatorial Guinea still has a healthy birthrate of just over five children per family, but the situation is changing fast. Several priests who came from large families themselves told me that their married siblings are generally only having two children. In the cities, the decline in fertility is dramatic. Despite this worrying trend, the ministry of health has family planning as its top priority as well as fighting AIDS through a program that relies heavily on condoms.

I saw a local television program featuring an AIDS prevention program in a small town. Although they began by saying "ABC"-Abstinence, Be Faithful and Condoms-they spent the vast majority of their time promoting condom use and neglecting to mention the terrible failure rates of this method. Guinean priests told me that the Church was usually invited to these AIDS prevention meetings at first, but since they refused to endorse condom use, they are no longer welcome at these sessions.

Looming over Equatorial Guinea, as in much of resource-rich West Africa, is the presence of the Communist People's Republic of China. Thirty percent of their oil is exported to China. There is a large and growing Chinese colony in Equatorial Guinea. As HLI readers know well, the anti-life ideas of China, particularly with regards to training doctors and policy-makers, are a big problem. They are quite eager to export their "success" in family planning and abortion to countries around the world.  

We will be establishing a branch of Seminarians for Life International in Equatorial Guinea and will send them our many excellent materials in Spanish. Training sessions for the priests are another high priority. I believe that this small nation is a perfect place for HLI to assist the Church in creating a pro-life stronghold that will successfully resist the assaults of the culture of death. The remarkable Spanish-language pro-life website HLI maintains, www.vidahumana.org, is something that the Guineans are very happy to have at their disposal. They are also looking forward to receiving pro-life films that can be shown in parishes and schools. Once again, HLI is fulfilling its mission of reaching the far-flung regions of the earth with the Gospel of Life.