VATICAN - International Convention on 40th anniversary of “Ad gentes” decree: Colombian Bishop Vittorino Girardi says “Today, although the fruits are still modest, we can speak of an infectious spirit of mission in our Churches”

Vatican City (Fides Service) - Addressing an International Convention on 40th anniversary of Vatican II “Ad gentes” decree organised in the Vatican by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples Bishop Vittorino Girardi of Tiralan Colombia spoke on the theme “Mission today in Latin America: challenges and prospects, particularly in local Churches in the care of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples”.
Bishop Girardi said his address would consider America as a whole, North and South, as the continent was treated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 in Santo Domingo when he opened the 4th General Conference of the Council of Latin American Bishops’ Conferences and by the post-synodal exhortation ‘Ecclesia in America’. “As fruits of our commitment to be one reality, we see increasing solidarity among Church north and south” the Bishop said while recalling many paradoxes and challenges to mission today. For example countries with a very high NGP and others among the poorest in the world; large countries Brazil, Canada, United, Argentina and minute ones S. Lucia, Barbados; prestigious universities and widespread illiteracy; a continent with extraordinary natural resources but precarious technological capacities prevent many countries from exploiting; an ever wider abyss between rich and poor. America, the Bishop said, “is the only Christian continent, and it is home to 60% of the world’s Catholics and the reason for which the Church refers to Latin America as the continent of hope. However this reality is lived in distinct cultural worlds: in regions rich in traditional and deep lying popular religiosity, others where Christianity slowly suffocated by secularism is almost “in agony” .
Hence the need for “full commitment” the Bishop said. For many years the Church in America was seen as a place of mission rather than a missionary Church. After the CELAM Conference in Puebla 1979 (mentioned above) mission spirit has grown, giving rise to national Congresses, missionary movements, new missionary institutes.... The Bishops in Santo Domingo said: “The time has come for America to be missionary. We call for everyone to engage in mission with enthusiasm at home and beyond our frontiers”. “Today we can speak of an infectious spirit of mission in our Churches although the fruits are still modest - the Bishop concluded -. As it spreads this spirit is strengthening and marking our spirituality”. (R.G.) (Agenzia Fides 11/3/2006; righe 37, parole 522)