AMERICA/VENEZUELA - Proclaiming the Gospel in a multicultural world: the opening of CAM 4 approaches

Friday, 22 November 2013

Maracaibo (Agenzia Fides) - How to proclaim the Gospel and to bear witness today, in a changing world, a secular and multicultural world? This questioned will be addressed to more than 4,000 participants in the Fourth American Missionary Congress (CAM 4) and IX Latin American Missionary Congress ( COMLA 9), which opens in Maracaibo (Venezuela), on November 26 and will end on December. Many missionarie and pastoral worker groups and delegations from all over the continent are already on their way.
"We must prepare ourselves to live in a permanent state of mission and leave immediate concerns in order to fully live our call to mission, we have to be prophets for mission in this changing world", says to Fides Agency father Andrea Bigotti, IMC, national Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in Venezuela.
CAM 4 will begin on Tuesday afternoon, November 26, with the solemn opening presided by the Holy Father’s Special Envoy, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, at the Basilica of Our Lady in Chinquinquirà.
On november 27, the first conference: "The proclamation of Jesus Christ in today's world, a multicultural and secularized world" by the Argentine theologian Lucas Cerviño, an expert in the intercultural field and religion-culture dialogue, a professor at the Latin American Institute of Missionología dell'Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB). The second conference will be held by His Exc. Mgr. Silvio Baéz, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, on the theme "The Word of God, the source of meaning for today's world". In the afternoon there will be thematic forums, which will see the participation of Fr. Vito del Prete, General Secretary of the Pontifical Missionary Union, on the theme " The Mission of evangelization in Asia" (The great religions, the masses of the poor) .
On 28 November, the third Conference on "The urgency of the mission in the new evangelization and Missione Ad Gentes context" will be proposed by Fr. Raul Biord Castillo, a Salesian, Provincial Vicar of the Salesians in Venezuela. The Fourth Conference: "Towards an American Church in a permanent state of mission" will be held by Consuelo Vélez (Colombia), a theologian and professor of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and by brother Israel Neri (Brazil).
29 November will be dedicated to the exchange of testimonies and experiences, then the conclusions will be drawn and one will prepare for the final celebration. On Saturday the 30th we will celebrate World Mission Day in every parish in the city, with the presence of the CAM 4 participants. In the late afternoon the solemn closing at the Basilica of Our Lady of Chinquinquirà with the missionary sending. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 22/11/2013)


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