The Spanish Comboni publication Mundo Negro changes director

Fifty three years ago, in order to carry out the charism and the missionary passion for Africa in Spain, the Comboni Missionaries started the magazine, Mundo Negro, which is now going to be in new hands. Fr. Jaime Calvera (picture on the right) will succeed Fr. Ismael Piñón.

Fr. Ismael said his goodbyes expressing the desire that “Africa may speak of itself through the magazine” and added: “I am leaving because, besides being a journalist, I am a missionary and the dream of all missionaries is to return to the missions. I hope to be able to return to Chad, where I already worked for 8 years.”

After the words of Fr. Ismael, the editor in chief of the magazine, Luis Esteban Larra, presented the new special issue on Africa, with essays – from Africa and from Spain – on history, politics, society, economy, development, education, culture, the Church and religion. It is an excellent work of analysis and documentation, completed by an insert, “Africa, country by country”, with a series of charts containing the main data of each African country.

The new director – who has worked for 16 years on the outskirts of Pretoria, in South Africa – admitted that it cost him a lot to leave the black continent with which he is “in love,” but that he accepts the challenge with trust and with joy.

Fr. Jaime accepts the challenge of directing the magazine “with trust in its team” and with “joy, because it is a project that generates enthusiasm.” Thus he will continue to do “mission promotion in a world where the Church tends to be introspective.” His mission, then, will consist in “informing on Africa and in forming along African values.” This will be done seriously and professionally, because “about Africa we receive little information and that little we get is poor and distorted.”

And besides, he is doing it in a special ecclesial context, after the election of Pope Francis: “How beautiful it is to see a Pope who is so ‘simpatico’,” they write to him from South Africa. A Pope who, because of this ties in “perfectly with the ebullient vitality of the African world,” explains Fr. Jaime. In fact, according to him, this Pope “has given rise to many expectations, small signals indicating that we are entering into a new springtime for the Church, because Francis, with his gestures, speaks to us of hope.”

Both the new director and his editor in chief agree that the “Spanish media do not pay attention to Africa” which is mentioned only when there is a tragedy of some kind. They ask that the “media may speak strongly and clearly about Africa.”

 
Luis Esteban Larra, Fr. Jaime Calvera and Fr. Ismael López Piñón.

“I am leaving because, besides being a journalist,
I am a missionary and the dream of all missionaries is to return to the missions.
I hope to be able to return to Chad, where I already worked for 8 years.”