AMERICA/BRAZIL - Missionary Campaign starts in Brazil, to “help Christians look beyond their own borders”

Brasilia (Agenzia Fides) – On March 22, at the headquarters of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in Brasilia, the Coordination Commission of the Missionary Campaign, which in fact has begun preparations to spread the initiative throughout Brazil, held their meeting. According to information received by Fides, the work is coordinated by the National Director of the PMS, Father Daniel Lagni, in cooperation with representatives of various missionary groups from the Church in Brazil. For the occasion, SVD priest Fr. Cyrene Kuhn, Director of Verbo Films, presented the fifth of 9 chapters from a book and a DVD for missionary animation, considered a novelty in this year's campaign.
120,000 copies of the book will be published and about 12,000 copies of the DVD will be distributed to all the Catholic communities of the country. According to Father Savio Corinaldesi, Brazilian Secretary of the Pontifical Missionary Union, "the campaign cannot lose sight of the main objective, to show the universal dimension of the mission, helping Christians to look beyond their own borders." In this sense, in presenting the theme "Mission and Sharing" (“Missao e Partilha”), the campaign highlights the awareness that Christians should show towards the mission ad gentes. This year, an appeal for Mission Week in the Amazon, which falls the last week of October, has also been added on to the campaign.
According to figures provided by the PMS, in the last decade, the collections from World Mission Sunday in Brazil increased from R $ (Brazilian real) 1,753,861.68 in 1999, to approximately R $ 6 million in 2009. The official poster for the 2010 Campaign, which in line with the Fraternity Campaign has the theme of "Mission and Sharing" and the motto "Hear the cry of my people" (Ex. 3.7 b), will soon be presented. The Campaign materials will be sent to every diocese in Brazil and will also be available for download on the PMS site (www.pom.org.br). (CE) (Agenzia Fides 26/03/2010)