AMERICA/CUBA - “Announcing Christ accompanied by Our Lady of Charity” slogan for Mission Year undertaken by the pilgrim Church in Cuba for 2005

Quemado de Guines (Fides Service) - “Announcing Christ accompanied by Our Lady of Charity” is the slogan chosen for a national Year of Mission announced by the Church in Cuba, National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Cuba, Rev. Raúl Rodríguez Dago told Fides.
One major event of the Year of Mission will be the first ever National Assembly of the Catholic Church in Cuba, scheduled to be held in Havana, 24 to 28 May which will bring the whole Church together to reflect on the fact that the Church lives to evangelise, as underlined by CAM 2 last year.
In its missionary history the Church in Cuba recalls the intense moments which led it to call the present Year of Mission, in particular the 8 year Pilgrim Cross initiative 1984-1992 to mark the 5th centenary of the evangelisation of America (1492-1992) which instilled new missionary spirit in Cuba. In 1986 the National Assembly of the Church in Cuba when the local Church vowed to become a missionary church attentive to the voice of the Master who sends her to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. In 1998 the history making first ever visit of a Pontiff to Cuba undertaken by Pope John Paul II who called on Cuban Catholics to spread among their fellow citizens the good news of salvation and the love and solidarity which Christ brings to all peoples in every era. In 2004 the Church in Cuba sent its representatives, 46 missionaries, to take part in CAM 2, the 2nd American Mission Congress in Guatemala.
In this context - Rodríguez Dago writes- the Year of Mission will be a year to remember the past with gratitude, live the present with enthusiasm and look with hope to the future. “The Missionary Year will give impulse to new evangelisation and help the Church in Cuba to put out into deep waters and the Pope asked in his Letter “Novo Millennio Ineunte”. Moreover “it will help to increase awareness that all Christians are called to engage in mission, call are called to preach the Gospel today in Cuba”, the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Cuba told Fides. (R.Z.) (Agenzia Fides 1/8/2005, righe 33 parole 385).