Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Alcalá de Henares (Agenzia Fides) - The National Assembly of Diocesan Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) of Spain has begun in Alcalá de Henares. The meeting will bring together a hundred responsible of missions and diocesan directors, which started on Tuesday, May 24 and ends on Thursday, May 26. The objective is to regain the "evangelical poverty" and the centrality of Christ as fundamental requirements for the missionary productiveness. The meeting is chaired by the newly elected President of the Episcopal Commission for Missions (ECM), the Archbishop of Toledo, Mgr.Braulio Rodríguez Plaza, and the new National Director of the PMS in Spain, Father. Anastasio Gil.
The event began with a missionary speech on behalf of father Vito Del Prete, PIME, general Secretary of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PMU), who hopes for a "Copernican revolution," in the evangelizing and missionary action of the Church, which must pass through " purification "to allow the" Missio Dei " to return to being the protagonist and not the projects or resources. In this context, he then asked for a "change of course" to reposition the soul of the mission in the action of the Holy Spirit, so as to give rise to a new "mission time", in which pastoral operators are able to move with courage , supported by the Word of God "If we want to regain with force the evangelizing mission – underlined Fr. Vito Del Prete - we must not nor we must offer nothing but Jesus Christ the Savior, the only wealth, the only power and the only salvation for humanity. "
In this sense, he criticized "the structures too rich" and expressed his belief that in the spirit of poverty, the solutions appear more clearly, by inviting the missionaries to act "only with the power of the Word of God", assuming an identity " poor and itinerant, "according to the conditions that Christ gave to the apostles. Even the self-financing of the young Churches must lead to a change in lifestyle, in tune with their societies, in which "money is not the ultimate criterion of missionary activity." (EC) (Agenzia Fides 25/05/2011)
