Working not for glory

Bishop Giorgio Bertin

Bishop Giorgio Bertin, president of Caritas Somalia, likens the huge battles facing the Catholic Church to the humility of the servant attending Jesus on the cross

Bishop Giorgio has a difficult role from his post in Somalia's neighbouring state of Djibouti. He is the exiled Apostolic Administrator of Somalia and president of Caritas Somalia, yet the population of Somalia is almost entirely Sunni Muslim.

The estimated Catholic population is only 100 out of a total population of around nine million, and the whole of the country forms a single diocese, the Diocese of Mogadishu.

Christianity's influence in Somalia was significantly reduced in the 1970s under the socialist rule of Mohammed Siad Barre when church-run schools were closed and missionaries sent home.

Ransacked and demolished

There has been no Archbishop of the Catholic cathedral in the country since 1989, when the incumbent bishop was assassinated.

Though Bishop Bertin worked there as a parish priest in the 1980s, the cathedral in Mogadishu was ransacked and demolished in 1992.

“The Catholic Church, especially during the last forty years, has been playing the role of someone who shares the hopes, the joys, the griefs and sorrows of the Somali people. Our martyrs, like Sister Leonella who was murdered a year ago, prove that,” says Bishop Bertin.

Sister Leonella Sgorbati was an Italian Consolata Sister who had worked in Africa for nearly 40 years before she was shot dead by gunmen outside the women and children's hospital where she worked in Mogadishu.

On the Sunday following her death, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of her work in his Angelus reflection.

The Consolata sisters reluctantly decided to leave as the killing had followed one kidnapping and another attack in which a hand grenade was thrown at a sister crossing the road.

Patient and resilient

Despite the killing, her fellow sisters vowed to return to Somalia and continue her work. They have yet to make that journey.

But, when asked about the future of the Catholic Church in Somalia, Bishop Bertin is clear that it has one, and is patient and resilient about working in such a difficult environment.

He says: “Throughout its history the Church in other parts of the world, and in Somalia itself, has faced similar, if not worst moments.

"For the Church, Somalia becomes a test of her credibility that it is working not for its glory but for the good of the people and for the glory of God.

“Without the restoration of a state in Somalia, the Catholic Church can only be present through its social branches, like Caritas and other Catholic organisations.”

Despite worsening security, Caritas Somalia continues to run a medical clinic in Baidoa, Somalia, providing treatment to about 2,000 people every month.

Now CAFOD and Islamic Relief have joined forces to bring relief to the people suffering in Somalia, which makes Bishop Bertin hopeful for the future.

“Delivering aid together is a message that working and living together is possible, that Muslims and Christians can collaborate to alleviate people in need. It will give hope to people desperately in need of fraternal relations.

“We believe that the most important saving event of Christ was when he was on the cross; our Church in Somalia has well experienced what it means to be on the cross.

"We stay at the cross of Jesus with the humility of the servant, who says: ‘I have tried to do my best; what it seemed possible to do. You, o Lord, will do the rest.’”

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