EUROPE/FRANCE - Mission Week 16-23 October 2005: “We are close to all the travellers on all the roads of the world because mission is movement towards others”

Paris (Fides Service) - Presenting activities for Mission Week 2005, 16-23 October Bishop Daniel Labille, president of the French Bishops’ Missions Commission and Rev. Jean-Marie Aubert, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies said “We are close to our brothers and sisters, emigrants all over the world, survivors of last year’s tsunami, the thousands of homeless in Darfur and the Great Lakes region, sub-Saharan youth who risk their lives in an attempt to enter Europe ... we are close to all travellers on the roads of the world because mission is movement towards others”.
In response to Pope John Paul II’s message for Mission Sunday 2005 and his request to help alleviate the many forms of poverty in the world today, this year PMS Mission Sunday efforts in France focus on the theme of migration in collaboration with the French Bishops’ Commission for pastoral care of migrants and itinerant peoples. The PMS mission day presentation said these activities, organised at the diocesan and parish level are “opportunities for encounter, sharing and celebration and concrete acts of solidarity with the more needy Churches”.
Every day during Mission Week the PMS have a 7.30pm radio debate broadcast by Radio Notre Dame on a series of themes: missionary solidarity; plight of emigrants attempting to enter Europe and our responsibility in this field; missionary prayer; the vital importance of PMS collections and aid; difficulties and lack of prospects for peoples in Latin America.
On Mission Sunday 23 October Radio Notre Dame will broadcast Mass live from the capital of French Guyana, celebrated by Bishop Emmanuel Lafont of Cayenne. As every year after Mission Week the Service of Exchange among Churches will promote initiatives 24-29 October to welcome back French missionaries returning after years of service in the missions.
A PMS France Mission Sunday dossier includes information on PMS collections and aid distributed in the past year and the number of French missionaries in the world: 3.744 priests, religious men and women and 960 lay missionaries working mainly in Africa but also in Latin America, Asia, Oceania, Europe and North America. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 20/10/2005, righe 29, parole 416)