The annual meeting of Carmelite Superiors of francophone Africa and Madagascar was held at Bangui from the 20th to the 24th January. For the first time, our meeting took place at the delegation of Central Africa, now blessed with forty brothers. We shared much on formation, which is a major point in our young African circumscriptions. The conference organized some time ago a ‘second novitiate’ for the future solemn professed brothers, and this year it launched online formation courses for formators. It is also appropriate to think now of permanent formation, in several different domains. Alongside our discussions, we were able to visit our brothers’ convent under construction, and have a memorable meeting with Cardinal Dieudonné Nazpalainga, archbishop of Bangui, who has worked productively with a Protestant pastor and an imam to prevent the civil war that has ravaged the country since 2013 from turning into a religious war.
