AMERICA/PARAGUAY - Bishops call for a Lenten conversion that will lead to a “renewed personal life and one committed to a new nation and communion in the Church, with missionary spirit”

Asuncion (Agenzia Fides) - “Lent is a time of conversion. As the People of God, we live within a social context marked by changes, quests, with many limitations and dangers. This situation leads to general fatigue and despair if we do not reflect on this reality of challenges, failures, and successes, at the light of the Word of God,” said the Bishops of Paraguay in their Lenten Message issued at the close of their Plenary Assembly which took place March 2-6. For the Bishops, Lent is also “an opportunity to contemplate our national challenges from a spiritual perspective, as a fruit of our own conversion, which is expressed in loving commitments towards others.”
The Bishops open their letter by presenting several challenges to the national reality. First of all, they mention the world economic crisis that “places even more limits on the already scarce funds and complicated the response to the worrisome situations in our country, such as the 600,000 malnourished children,” as “the Catholic Church is not immune to the generalized economic crisis and it takes its toll on support for pastoral activities.”
The Bishops also mention the lack of jobs, of healthcare, and of food that should lead all people to a deeper sense of solidarity this Lent. They also denounce the other problems facing the nation, such as: recuperating energy autonomy; promoting permanent ecology and avoiding excessive deforestation; placing an integral and participative agricultural reform; the reform of the Judicial Branch; the fight on corruption; not permitting legalization of marijuana, which some try to justify as a simple economist or pragmatic vision, without taking into account the damage that it does to people; work in favor of the most downtrodden social groups.
In facing this situation of “despair in a country that seems to be going nowhere,” they make an appeal to the government, asking that they “offer clear signs that they are working to overcome ignorance, poverty, and corruption,” and they ask social and political actors, especially Catholics, to work for a more just society.
The Bishops then consider the Continental Mission as something that “should be at the service of our communities, helping them to maintain a missionary spirit, lived in the family, in the parish, and in the diocese.” The missionary spirit should lead the Church to place itself in a permanent state of mission.
“Let us enter into this Lenten spirit of renewal as living members of the People of God, with a renewed personal life, committed to a new nation and communion in the Church, with missionary spirit,” the Bishops conclude, recalling that this path will be “the best way to prepare ourselves for the celebration of our Bicentennial Anniversary of National Independence.” (RG) (Agenzia Fides 9/3/2009)