AMERICA/COLOMBIA - “Disciples of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church, missionaries of hope for new evangelisation of Latin America and the Caribbean at the dawn of the Third Millennium”: Council of Latin American Bishops’ Conferences will hold 5th General Assembly in Rome in 2007

Thursday, 1 July 2004

Bogota (Fides Service) - La Presidency of the Council of Latin American Bishops’ Conferences CELAM announced that Pope John Paul II has granted its request to convoke the 5th General Assembly of the Council of Latin American Bishops’ Conferences, in February 2007 in Rome.
In his intervention at a press conference at CELAM head offices in Bogota, to announce the event, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, Archbishop of Santiago del Chile and President of CELAM, illustrated the social cultural context in which the Conference will take place and he announced the theme which, unless changed, will be: “Disciples of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church, missionaries of hope for new evangelisation of Latin America and the Caribbean at the dawn of the Third Millennium”. The President of CELAM underlined that pastoral work should lead to an encounter with the living Jesus Christ, on this encounter depends the quality of the disciple: “Disciples of Jesus Christ are those who have met the Lord, come to know him, who listen to him, learn from him and follow him, sharing his mission”.
CELAM Secretary General CELAM, Bishop Andrés Stanovnik, Bishop of Reconquista, Argentina, explaining the reasons for the convocation of a new CELAM general assembly, said that continual changes in society make it necessary for the Church to come together, to discern, to see together what is happening, what is good and what could be a threat. The objective of the 5th General Assembly is to “to compare reality with the message of Jesus, to shed light and try to see”. Illustrating this objective, Bishop Stanovnik said that the Latin American Bishops are deeply concerned about the gap between what is believed and what it practised and about the proliferation of sects, often aggressive with regard to the Catholic Church. These sects break up communities they do not help to transform social, they encourage religious sentiment which does not lead to the transformation of society. These new challenges which unfortunately are common in Latin America, demand that the Bishops must be closer to the People of God, to the families, priests, communities entrusted to their care. “We feel the need to stimulate, to encourage the Church in Latin America to live in a permanent state of mission” Bishop Stanovnik added. (R.Z.) (Agenzia Fides 1/7/2004; Righe 28; Parole 396)


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