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Montevideo (Agenzia Fides) - On the Solemnity of Pentecost, the Bishops of Uruguay’s 10 dioceses presented their faithful with the new Pastoral Guidelines that will serve for the five-year term of 2008-2013 in guiding the path of the pilgrim Church in Uruguay, called to the permanent mission. During the Masses held on Pentecost, presided by each diocesan Bishop, the Guidelines were presented with the title “Recomenzar desde Emaus” (Starting from Emmaus). The Guidelines had been recently approved by Uruguay’s Bishops’ Conference in its Ordinary Plenary Assembly held in April. The Pastoral Guidelines, which are fruit of a process of discernment and consultation among the Diocese, Departments, and Commissions of the CEU (the Bishops’ Conference), propose three Pastoral Priorities: live an authentic process of pastoral conversion; live the call to communion with greater intensity; live the call to the mission with greater intensity.
The National Coordinator of Pastoral Ministry, Bishop Francisco Barbosa of Minas, drafted a declaration for the Celebration of Pentecost 2008, in which he affirmed that the Church in Uruguay, in accord with the entire Church of Latin America and the Caribbean, assumes “the Continental Mission for a Missionary Church.” “This Pentecost, we wish to celebrate the sending out of each one of our communities, so that inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, they may receive and take on the task of Aparecida and of the new Pastoral Guidelines of the CEU; and thus, they will be illumined by the Holy Spirit to promote the permanent missionary awareness and action of the disciples through the Continental Mission,” Bishop Francisco explained.
According to the Bishop, the mission that is taking place as a result of the Aparecida Conference should above all, “encourage the missionary vocation of Christians, strengthening their faith roots and awakening them to their responsibility, so that all Christian communities may live in a state of permanent mission.” Moreover, “one essential goal of the Continental Mission is to realize that the missionary dimension is a constitutive part of the Church’s identity and of the Lord’s disciple. Thus, apart from the Kerygma, she works to revitalize the encounter with the Living Christ and strengthen the sense of belonging to the Church, so that the Baptized go from being ‘evangelized’ to being ‘evangelizers.’”
In his statement, the Bishop offers three main practical suggestions: celebrate the Patron Saints’ feast days with a missionary meaning...on a national level, the Feast of “La Virgen de los Treinta y Tres,” Patroness of Uruguay; inform and spread awareness of the Third American Missionary Congress which will take place in Quito (Ecuador) next August; and lastly, celebrate the Feast of Pentecost with a missionary meaning. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 12/5/2008; righe 36, parole 440)
