OCEANIA/NEW ZEALAND - In January Men and women Religious will attend first ever national Conference on the Consecrated Life

Friday, 17 December 2004

Wellington (Fides Service) - Men and women Religious of New Zealand will gather in Kilbirnie in January for the first national Conference on the Consecrated Life. Some 300 delegates from different religious congregations are expected to attend as well as representatives from Australia, Fiji Islands and Tonga. The four day conference of study, reflection and community prayer will start on 20 January. The main talk will be given by Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe, former Master General of the Order, on the theme “Bringing hope to Religious life and vocation”.
Sr. Josephine Caulton, secretary of the organising committee said the aim of the Conference is to foster “mutual support and discern together new ways of living consecrated life today in the third millennium in Oceania”.
In New Zealand Catholic Religious are involved mainly in catechesis and religious instruction in schools. A major challenge is to encourage vocations to the religious life in a highly secularised country. New Zealand has 202 priest Religious, 172 Brothers, 1,030 Sisters and a Catholic community of 470,000 out of a population 3.9 million.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 17/12/2004 righe 24 parole 241)


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