ABSTRACT

The Vatican II Council, which was held from 1962 to 1965, was the greatest moment of meaningful re-discovery, re-defining, experiencing permanent conversion, renewal and seeking for true African-Christian identity, deeper evangelization, quality progress and universal commissioning of the Church in Africa.1 Vatican II taught and showed the socio-religious richness of Africa and the importance of the local churches and their contribution to the universal Church.2 Vatican II mandated to the church the important task of manifesting a true relationship between Christian values and African culture, through inculturation, for deeper evangelization and holistic transformation. For a very long time people on the African continent had wanted to feel at

home in the Church; they had been striving for a genuine and permanent expression of the Christian and African identity. As Zambian ecclesiologist, Benson Chinkanga Phiri, put it,

African Catholics want to be truly African and truly Christian in the Church. They want to share their true identity with the peoples of the world. Just as Africans received a lot from the Western civilization, today Africans want to teach their transformative communal values to the international community.3