Accra, July 18, GNA - Over 2,000 Catholics from 21 African countries on Wednesday convened in Accra to begin the First Pan-African Conference of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal to pray for peace and unity in Africa.

The Conference would also provide a platform for delegates to celebrate 40 years of Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) and provide vision and direction for their leaders.

The charismatic renewal is a new dimension in the Catholic faith that empowers Catholics to experience the powers of the Holy Spirit Baptism and charismatic gifts in a new way.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, the Most Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle, Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, said Ghana was privileged to host the event.

"This is surely a year of grace and hope for the Church on the continent of Africa," he noted.

He said the theme of the conference:" Africa-Family of God, Let Streams of Living Water Flow from your Heart", represented God's message to the world to join forces to bring freedom to the children of God and to all.

Most Rev. Palmer-Buckle, who is also the Vice President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference, said to fulfil the mandate of bringing liberty to all humanity, heads of the Catholic faith would meet at Cape Coast in November, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slave trade and deliberate on ways to eliminate all forms of slavery.

He prayed for God's blessings, peace, reconciliation and justice for Africa. Pope Benedict XVI, in a speech read on his behalf by the Most Reverend George Kocherry, Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana, said the Catholic Church with a population of 1.1 billion faithful, was growing in spite of the adverse situations in certain countries. He said the Church was proud to have 4,742 bishops, 405,000 priests, 782,932 professed religious sisters, including other lay missionaries and deacons.

He urged them to regard the church as a family of God and work hard to ensure the growth and stability of the Church. Rev. Father Emmanuel Tusiime, Vice Chairman of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services (Uganda), said the delegates would also pray for Ghana and the vision for African unity. He said the theme was chosen on the inspiration that God was promising a Christian vision of empowering Africa with the Holy Spirit to change the hearts of the continent into unity.

"We sense that it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that tribal divisions and selfish motives would be healed and the love Of God will reign to bring peace and unity among nations," Rev Tusiime added.