Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) – From 25 to 30 November 2003, the 2nd American Mission Congress, CAM 2, will take place in Guatemala. This major ecclesial event will be attended by more than 3000 delegates from every country on the American continent from Alaska to the Tierra del Fuego of Fire. The participants will be bishops clergy, religious men and women and laity involved in mission in America and elsewhere in the world. Pope John Paul II has appointed Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, his Special Envoy to CAM2. Fides interviewed the Cardinal shortly before his departure for Guatemala.
Your Eminence what is an American Mission Congress?
An American Mission Congress CAM is a meeting of the People of God, especially those who in the Church in America, north, centre, south and in the Caribbean, are in any way engaged in activity of ad gentes missionary promotion and animation at local, regional or national level. The primary objective of CAM is to animate the Particular Churches of the American continent so they may shoulder their missionary responsibility to engage in specific evangelisation of all peoples. These Congresses have an eminently pastoral character and they are a valid and almost indispensable means of giving profundity, form and life to the missionary awareness of these Churches.
How did these Mission Congresses start?
American Mission Congresses started in Torreon, Mexico when Mexico held its 7th national mission congress 20-23 November 1977. For a series of circumstances which I would call providential that Congress became the first Latin American Mission Congress COMLA recognised as such thanks to the enthusiasm and presence of the Papal Envoy, my predecessor as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Cardinal Angelo Rossi, as well as delegations from numerous other Latin American countries, gave the Congresses a continental spirit.
Four more Latin American Congresses, held in different regions, followed COMLA 1: COMLA-2 in 1983, Tlaxcala, Mexico; COMLA-3 in 1987 Bogota, Colombia; COMLA-4 in 1991 in Lima Peru; COMLA-5 in 1995 a Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Following the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops held in the Vatican 16 November to 12 December 1997 which considered America as a whole, the organisers of COMLA-6, scheduled from 29 September to 3 October 1999 a Parana, Argentina, decided that the missionary event would be one of the first fruits of the Special Synod for America since it would bring together for the first time missionaries from the entire continent from Alaska to the Tierra del Fuego.
So the 6th Latin American Mission Congress Comla-6 in Parana Argentina, 29 September to 3 October 1999 was in fact the first All America Mission Congress CAM-1. I think this was one of the “fruits of communion and solidarity in the integration in one Church in one America” referred to in (Council of Latin American Bishops Conferences) CELAM’s global plan 2003-2007.
Why is CAM2 being held in Guatemala?
If we look at American geography we see that Guatemala lies at the heart of the continent. It unites central, north and south America. I think its geographical position is not sufficient to explain the reason for choosing Guatemala to host CAM 2.
I think that the Church Guatemala, a country which has played a primary role in the history of the Church in America, still has and will have in the immediate future great importance. Proof of this is the fact that Pope John Paul II has made three visits to this country.
On the occasion of his second apostolic journey in February 1996 the Pope praised “hundreds of catechists and several priests who risk their life, and some even give their life, for the Gospel”. The heritage of these “heroes of the faith” said Pope John Paul II, “is the urgent task of evangelisation. On no account may any place or any person be left without the good news of the Gospel”. Last year when he came to canonise Saint Pedro de Betancur, the Pope said he was an example to be imitated by all with his testimony of holiness fruit of “an interior encounter with Christ, which transforms the human person filling him or her with love of neighbour”.
The Church in Guatemala prepared for the Congress with a sense of great responsibility. Numerous initiatives at the local, national, and Central American level, such as the Missionary Year, increased awareness among the people. From the start Catholics in Guatemala felt the Congress as theirs. An eloquent sign of the Guatemalan people’s love for the Congress is the hospitality and generosity with which families in the capital are preparing to offer accommodation to more than 3.000 participants.
This work was realised by the Bishops’ Conference of Guatemala, in particular by Cardinal Rodolfo Quezada Toruño, archbishop of Guatemala, and the CAM2 Central Commission presided by Bishop Cabrera Ovalle of Jalapa, with the assistance of the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Guatemala Reverend Antonio Bernasconi.
What will be the main aspect of the Second American Mission Congress?
Keeping in mint the social and ecclesial context of the Central America area, I think for example of “example of unlimited dedication to the Gospel” given by many sons and daughters of these beloved countries – among whom we cannot forget Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera auxiliary of Guatemala,– point to a central aspect of the Congress: to welcome the call to holiness on the part of each individual believer and the whole Christian community, is the indispensable premise for the particular Churches in America to assume responsibly in a spirit of solidarity commitment for mission ad gentes.
I believe that the Church in Guatemala and in the other central America countries, from the riches of her faith purified by the fire of trial, from the treasure of her witnesses of faith and the witness of ecclesial communion among her different peoples and ethnic groups can make a great contribution to the whole Church in America and therefore to the universal Church. With her example who demonstrates that only from gifts of the grace received in the sacrament of Baptism – fully developed vitally assimilated– and therefore only from a holy life can we be authentic witnesses of the mystery of God’s Love and it is possible to assume with courage the universal call to mission.
The Holy Father will inaugurate the Congress with a Message which, through his Special Envoy, he will address to the participants. All of us, especially the Particular Churches on the continent, await the words of the Pope as a stimulus and guide for the development of mission ad gentes in America and from America.
How is the Church in America called to respond to the challenges of the missionary Church?
I prefer to reply to this question starting from the present moment. Very often we speak of America as the continent of hope and we cannot doubt that it is. Certainly, from my position as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, I can say that already the Church in America is responding concretely and effectively to the needs and challenges of evangelisation, not only within her own continental frontiers but also beyond the continent.
Gradually there is growing awareness that economic poverty and lack of means does not give one the right to call oneself “only receiving Churches”. Concrete pastoral activity confirms that there is an intimate and indissoluble bond between mission ad gentes and new evangelisation, since the latter “draws inspiration and motivation from commitment to the universal mission”. Moreover many particular Churches feel that without mission ad gentes they are deprived of their universal dimension, which makes them Catholic. In this sense I must say that there is growing acceptance of the fact that a priest is not ordained exclusively for his Particular Church and that therefore he must also be concerned with mission ad gentes.
However this growth in awareness of mission responsibility is not everywhere the same. In some places, I think especially of places in the north of the continent and other sectors – particular Churches who in the past were generously available for mission – there is a present a lessening of “missionary zeal”. The local Bishops, aware of the problem, are striving to strengthen the faith of their communities to help them assume responsibility for the challenge to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world.
What response does the Church in America offer to missione ad gentes ?
Through programmes of missionary cooperation, “Sister Churches”, certain particular Churches on the continent which the Lord has blessed with more vocations, help with a spirit of solidarity dioceses or Apostolic Vicariates in America, in most need of apostolic personnel. In recent years there has been an encouraging increase in sending fidei donum priests and lay missionaries to “mission territories”, which in America are 83 ecclesiastic circumscriptions. America is evangelising America.
The evangelising impulse of the Church in America is felt increasingly in Asia and above all in Africa. The Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, anxious to support this initiative, is committed to helping, as far as possible, all those dioceses in Latin America anxious to send some of their priests, properly prepared, to “mission territories”.
At the same time religious institutes and societies of apostolic life have done much to increase mission awareness. Among these I would mention those specifically ad gentes, founded in America, whose members are presently working on the five continents. Another important aspect to underline is the opening of diocesan missionary seminaries in various dioceses in the North, Centre and South. These are expressions of a particular Church anxious to strengthen its faith by giving it to others, also “beyond the frontiers”.
Among the signs of hope we must not forget the presence, very widespread in the ecclesial geography of the American continent, of Church Movements and Communities, which give the Church vitality which is a gift of God and are an authentic new outpouring of the Spirit. In some of these new charisma we see a radical and generous service to the proclamation of the Gospel and to mission ad gentes. This enables the Church to respond adequately to the challenges posed by sects in no few areas of America.
What missionary challenges does the Church encounter on the other continents ?
If we take a brief glance at the situation of the world population in Asia, Africa, Oceania and also in Europe, in relation to the Christian faith, we cannot fail to say, with the Holy Father, that mission “has only just begun and that therefore we must put all our energy at its service”.
Asia merits special attention. In Asia there are more than 3.75 billion people, 60% of the earth’s population. But only 3% is Catholic, half concentrated in one country, the Philippines. Asia, the cradle of great traditional religions, is also the continent where there are more obstacles to the Church’s missionary activity for ideological and religious-cultural reasons.
Another continent still in need of extensive first evangelisation is Africa. Evangelisation, except in some countries, advanced thanks to relative freedom at a good pace. Out of a population of 861 million 17%. Is Catholic. In several regions of Africa there is opening and explicit demand for the Gospel but insufficient missionaries to proclaim Jesus Christ.
In Oceania with 30 million people, Catholics are 7.5 million. Although Europe has centuries of Christian values and tradition it is suffering from a crisis of secularisation which threatens many of the values acquired to the point that today it has new missionary situations demanding first evangelisation as well as some territories not sufficiently evangelised.
Your Eminence, to end the interview would you like to add anything else?
I would like to recall that the centre of all missionary activity is proclamation of Jesus Christ, the only Saviour and Redeemer of the world, to know and experience His love. Proclaiming Jesus of Nazareth is the nucleus of the Gospel message which the Church can never neglect because it would mean to deprive men and women of the Good News of salvation. The 2nd American Mission Congress manifests the concern of the Church in America to carry this announcement to the peoples of the earth. It is a concrete expression that the “la vita of the Church in America” is and will continue to be a life lived for the mission of the Redeemer “to the ends of the earth”.
(S L) (Fides Service 21/11/2003 - lines.172, words 2103)
