SAMUELS: ACCCRUS supports African clergy, religious working in the U.S.

(Photo by James Ramos/Herald)

We are called to celebrate the diversity that is incorporated within our local Church community. The Archdiocese acknowledges the diversity and has created vicars or priests to represent the various ethnic communities. There is a vicar for Vietnamese Catholics, vicar for Filipino Catholics, and I am currently the vicar for Catholics of African Descent.

One of the jobs as vicar of Catholics of African Descent is to promote the various diverse communities that make up the African and African American Catholic Community here in our Archdiocese. There is one organization that addresses the needs of the faithful from the African continent.  

ACCCRUS is an acronym for the African Conference of Catholic Clergy and Religious in the U.S. ACCCRUS is an association of priests and religious men and women from Africa who are working and/or studying in the U.S. and throughout our own Archdiocese. 

ACCCRUS was formed to provide an environment of spiritual and social support to African clergy and religious people who work in the U.S. The organization was founded in 2000 as a challenge from the USCCB to promote understanding and cooperation among Africans who come from various parts of the African continent to minister in the U.S.  

One of the main missions of ACCCRUS is to organize seminars and workshops to make their ministry within the U.S. Church a more effective ministry as missionaries within the cross-cultural and multicultural dynamics of American society. As vicar, my job is to bridge the information gap between the African bishops and major superiors with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on issues affecting the African clergy and African religious on mission in the U.S.  

We are charged with giving the African clergy and African religious men and women who serve the nation a platform for the promotion of solidarity and reliance between the U.S. Church and the African Church. 

This past June, ACCCRUS held its 23rd annual convention here in Houston. In attendance were Daniel Cardinal DiNardo; Christophe Cardinal Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S.; Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville; keynote speaker Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio L. Elizondo, M.Sp.S., of the Archdiocese of Seattle; and Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria. 

ACCCRUS’ president, Father Alphonsus Enelichi, M.S.P., welcomed priests and African priests and religious serving in the U.S. to Houston to discuss leadership and collaboration in the ministry. At this conference was Sister Dr. Joanna Okereke, HHJC, the assistant director of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity at the USCCB, who urged the participants in the local Church to be “inspired to share our faith values and African heritage for the enrichment of the local and Universal Church.”   

You can hear more about ACCCRUS on my podcast “In His Light with Father Reginald Samuels” on Apple podcast and Spotify. 
 
Father Reginald Samuels is the vicar of Catholics of African Descent and pastor of St. Hyacinth Catholic Church in Deer Park.