Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Santiago (Agenzia Fides) - Some five hundred people are gathered for the 1st National Assembly of the Catholic Church in Chile which opened on Wednesday 10 October with a Mass presided by Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, Archbishop of Santiago. The participants were convoked by the bishops to offer suggestions with regard to new pastoral guidelines. The three day session has been presided by the Standing committee of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Chile and the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Aldo Cavalli. Among the conclusions of the first discussion the participants said the faith needs to be strengthened “it has weakened”, and “the only way to foster more and permanent missionary impulse and preferential love for the poor and the excluded is to help people have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ”. The participants said the country's "great evangelising potential must be developed". Hence the urgent need for ongoing and systematic formation in the faith. The great challenge is to be "a Church which is present in the world today. Each of us in his or her diverse and particular reality, is part of this body."
In an intervention “A Church of disciples and missionaries”, on Thursday 11 October, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, described the communion experienced at 5th General Conference of the Council of Bishops' Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean in Aparecida. He said "Aparecida was aware of the situation of countless baptised Catholics whose membership in the Church is not expressed in activity participation in Sunday Mass, or the reading of the word of God; and of the increase of non baptised persons in Latin America and the Caribbean; and also that many baptised Catholics have sought to quench their thirst for God in other religious communities, mainly other Christian groups". Although missionary ardour is growing in many communities, this should be more widespread. Hence to need to "reawaken missionary ardour in our Church in Latin America and Caribbean, where today Juan Diego, called by name, must go out to evangelise with in one hand the Bible and in the other an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The consequence of this great novelty of Aparecida is that the People of God must live in a permanent state of mission".
The Archbishop of Santiago explained "since early planning for the 5th General Conference, the idea was not to conclude the Conference with a Message but rather with the power of the Holy Spirit, with missionary impulse which would imply the interiorisation of the pastoral guidelines and commitments all over the della Continent" and that the impulse could come from a Great Continental Mission to "reach out to all the baptised and all those who have never encountered Jesus Christ ". The Cardinal said the Mission has two main goals in every community: "on the one hand reawaken missionary impulse which must become permanent and on the other interiorise the great spiritual, pastoral, religious and human richness, experience of communion and pastoral guidelines of Aparecida". This mission cannot be homogenous since every country has its own pastoral plans and times, he said, but it must have some common points. In this sense the Presidents of the Bishops' Conferences will meet in March next year to plan the Great Continental Mission more in detail.
The three day session of the 1st National Catholic Church Assembly, closes today 12 October with a solemn Mass at the national Marian Shrine of Maipú presided by Bishop Alejandro Goic of the diocese of Rancagua, President of the Chilean Bishops' Conference. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 12/10/2007; righe 41, parole 563)
