New bishop urges unity during reforms |06 January 2009
Bishop-elect James Wong of the Anglican Church said this yesterday during an interview he
“As a church we should be able to pray for solidarity within the nation and for God to help us come out of the crisis,” he said.
He said all Seychellois should work together to put the economy back on track and it would be expected that international partners and other countries would chip in.
Bishop Wong said he will follow plans similar to those of his predecessors and will lay emphasis on the need for training.
He said he will soon invite some of his colleagues from South Africa to run courses on Christian counselling for which he feels there is a need particularly where family life is concerned and to enable the church to listen better to the difficulties of its members and offer answers to various challenges.
“The church should be able to give answers where there are crises in marriage life, for example,” Bishop Wong said, adding he does not support gay marriages and none will be conducted during his term of office.
“The church should be able to welcome all the people with different tendencies but at the same time the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. In the church there are people who lie and steal. Christ died for all the sinners and we should not be judgemental. We should love and care for them but at the same time tell them the truth about the Bible,” he said.
“There will also be a need for pastoral care in the areas of drug abuse and HIV/Aids,” he said, adding the church should further develop programmes to help cut the spread of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
Asked what to expect of relations between the Anglican and the Roman Catholic Church, he said they will be cordial, noting his fellow Mauritian, Bishop Denis Wiehe who heads the Catholic Church here called to congratulate him upon his recent election.
Bishop Wong said he will leave Seychelles this week to return in March for his likely consecration here in April.