Pontiff Urges Africans to Reject ‘Anti-Life Mentality’

Pope John Paul II on Monday urged Africans not to be influenced by ideas from the developed world on limiting families through contraception and abortion.

Visiting Bamenda in the English-speaking western part of Cameroon, the pontiff praised family traditions, including the high value Africans place on having children. These traditions, he said, are threatened by “a powerful anti-life mentality,” a term the Roman Catholic Church uses to mean artificial birth control and abortion.

This mentality is widspread in developed countries, the Pope said, and is being passed on to developing nations as if it were the compulsory path to development and progress.

John Paul said the church recognizes the problems of rapid population growth facing some African countries, and he made reference to the rhythm method of birth control favored by the Vatican.

‘Sacramental Manifestation’

Speaking of Africa as a whole, where polygamy and trial marriages are common, the Pope said Christians should “live their marriage and family covenant as a sacramental manifestation of the union of Christ and church.”

Back here in the capital later, John Paul urged independence for Namibia and lashed out for the second day in a row at apartheid, criticizing South Africa’s system of racial segregation as an injustice that works by virtue of “severe repression.”

Vatican officials could not recall the Pope’s having previously called directly for an independent Namibia (South-West Africa), which South Africa rules in defiance of the United Nations.

Addressing Cameroonian government officials and foreign diplomats, the pontiff said nations could not have dignity without independence.

“One hopes that those (African nations) which are not yet independent--I am thinking particularly of Namibia--become so without delay,” he said.

‘Crying Injustice’

In another criticism of Pretoria, the Pope repeated his call for an end to the “crying injustice” of apartheid.

“It is deplorable to see the prolongation of a system of apartheid, which, by means of severe repression, continues to claim many victims, trampling underfoot an elementary human right,” he said.

Sunday, the Pope referred to apartheid for the first time on this seven-nation African tour, denouncing the latest violence in South Africa and bluntly criticizing white-minority rule.

In Monday’s speech, by far the most political yet on the tour, the pontiff condemned human rights abuses, supported religious and individual freedom and African unity and called for a de-escalation of the arms race.