Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “ Fidei Donum Missionaries: the Future of Evangelisation” is the title of a special issue of the July-September magazine Omnis Terra containing the Acts of the International Congress organised earlier in the year to mark 50th anniversary of Pius XII Encyclical Fidei donum on the missionary activity of diocesan clergy, promoted by the Pontifical Mission Union. The Congress “All the Churches for all the World ”, held at Fraterna Domus at Sacrofano, just outside Rome, 8 - 11 May 2007, brought together about 400 participants from more than 100 different countries to reflect on the progress made by missionary activity and its lights and shadows in these five decades.
In a preface to the Congress Acts, Cardinal Ivan Dias Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples says the encyclical “gave rise to missionary ardour in many dioceses, an enthusiasm which spread to generations of seminarians and lay people. Thousands of priests of Churches of early foundation in the West went first to Africa, and then to Latin America, in response to the Pontiff's call. A few at a time Churches of recent foundation in Asia, Africa and Latin American began in turn to send their own priests to other Churches in other countries. This sharing of mission has become a universal practice. Missio Dei has become the constant occupation and preoccupation of the whole Church, of all the Churches”.
The fact that the Encyclical Fidei donum was an event, both for its content and for the circumstances under which it was published, was underlined by Archbishop Henryk Hoser President of the Pontifical Mission Societies who wrote in the introduction: “The real novelty was the launching of a new missionary agent. Cooperation among the Churches called for substantial help, more precious, in the form of missionaries ad tempus who, consequently, could be more easily moved and changed. Pius XII opened the way for reciprocal bilateral assistance among local Churches, enabling them to enrich one another by means of gifts of personnel, motivated and animated by faith. This way revealed itself to be a source of powerful dynamism, for the Churches: Churches which gave and others which received. History confirmed the Pontiff's intuition”.
The Acts have been published in five languages: English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. For more information apply to: Segretariato Internazionale della Pontificia Unione Missionaria, Via di Propaganda 1c - 00187 Roma. Tel. (+39) 06.6988.0132 Fax (+39) 06.6988.0124. E mail: pum@org.va (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 12/9/2007; righe 31, parole 407)
