Mgr. Léonard Ndjadi Ndjate ordained auxiliary bishop of Kisangani

The Eucharistic celebration was attended by hundreds of people, including faithful from the archdiocese of Kinshasa, civil, military, and religious authorities, as well as people from other provinces of Congo and foreign countries.

The Mass was presided over by Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kinshasa. In his homily, the cardinal, after thanking Pope Francis for his pastoral solicitude towards the archdiocese of Kisangani, congratulated bishop Léonard on his appointment as auxiliary bishop of this archdiocese, and thanked the Combonian missionaries for “the generous availability of their confrere to serve the Church of Kisangani”.

Cardinal Fridolin urged the new bishop to have, like Saint Daniel Comboni, a passion for his mission, to be the pastor who suffers when his people suffer, rejoices when his people celebrate, speaks in the name of God without fear, and accompanies everyone without discrimination.

At the moment of his appointment as auxiliary bishop of Kisangani, Mgr Léonard was provincial superior of the Combonian missionaries in DR Congo. He had made his first religious profession in 2002 and taken his perpetual vows in 2005. He was ordained a priest on 13^th August 2006 in Kisangani and then was sent on mission in the Central African Republic, where he lived until 2013.

After obtaining a Licentiate in Spiritual Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he was appointed novice master of the Comboni International Novitiate in Cotonou, Benin, from 2015 to 2019. In 2020, he was elected provincial superior of the Comboni missionaries of Congo for a three-year term. His appointment as auxiliary bishop of Kisangani came a few months after his re-election as provincial superior.

According to Mgr Marcel Utembi, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kisangani, the pastoral, socio-political and cultural realities are rich and complex. The archdiocese, therefore, expects Mgr Léonard, 47, to bring “a new breath of fresh air to the apostolic work”.

Bishop Léonard will assist Mgr Marcel Utembi in the areas of education, economy and finance of the archdiocese, the Pontifical Missionary Works, social pastoral ministries (Caritas, media and integral ecology), Catholic action movements, etc.

The new bishop's motto is Delectare in Domino (“Rejoice in the Lord”). In his speech, he thanked all those who had contributed to his human, spiritual and missionary formation, and urged the faithful to pray for him, so that he may carry out faithfully his weighty mission as pastor of God’s people in Kisangani.

Brother Lwanga Kakule, mccj.