Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Montevideo (Fides Service) - “Building history in the heart of the world” is the theme of the 30th National Laity Meeting to be held tomorrow 17 September at the Maturana School Complex, Montevideo. The meeting is organised by the Laity Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Uruguay. Participants will include familiar faces of people working in this area of pastoral care since Vatican II who will share their experience with committed lay people to strengthen bonds which unite, identity which convokes and mission which impells to find responses to the challenges in Uruguay today.
The participants will analyse the present situation of economy, women, emigration, disabled, prisons, the media and their role in these areas. They prepared carefully for the meeting with the help of handbooks produced by the organising committee. The meeting will focus on three main topics: memory, identity, future project with the following objectives: “feel part of the people of God which lives, suffers and rejoices in this land of Uruguay; celebrate the memory of many other meetings at historic moments for the country; draw close to people who rendered visible the lay face of the Church; look at the past with a sense of history; take up the challenges of lay people’s mission to build the situation in which they live according to the principles of the Gospel”.
After the ceremony of welcome, the first part of the meeting will focus on “Remembering, looking to the future, building projects”: participants will watch a video “Living memory, witnesses” this will be followed by a round table disscusion on the theme “What challenges face the laity today?”. The morning’s work will close with Mass. The afternoon will focus on building a project: individual participants may present ideas in one of 12 workshop groups on the following subjects: prisoners, media, Eucharist, migration, economy of solidarity, lay vocation and mission, professional ethics, community faith experience, political involvement, women, integration of disabled person, co-responsibility of lay people in the journeying of the Church. (RZ) (Agenzia Fides 16/9/2005, righe 28 parole 364)
