Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) - In his report on the activity of the Pontifical Missionary Union in the past year PMU secretary general Fr Vito del Prete, PIME, told the Superior Council of the Pontifical Mission Societies meeting for its annual assembly in Ciampino (Rome) until Friday 12 May, that the “PMU today must be the driving belt of missionary spirituality and the founding motives that lead communities to engage in missionary activity”. Fr Vito del Prete, a PIME missionary for many years on mission in Bangladesh, was appointed PMU secretary general in October 2005 after serving 4 years as national PMU secretary in Italy.
The new statute of the Pontifical Mission Societies states : “the objective of the PMU is to stimulate missionary formation and awareness among priests, members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, consecrated laity, candidates to priesthood and religious life in all its forms as well as other persons engaged in the pastoral ministry of the Church”. To reach this goal the International Secretariat publishes a magazine Omnis Terra and offers Courses in Missology.
For the Secretary of the PMU the Union is still valid today although, he said, in many countries its identity needs to be deepened. “It falls to the PMS, the PMU especially, to propose and realise evangelisation as an activity which flows from God who is Love and from the pierced heart of Christ. If the clergy and religious miss the appointment with the new awareness of the nature of modern missionary work, the Gospel will make little progress. Therefore it is our duty to re-define our being missionaries in the face of the vast areas of mission of our day and changes in ecclesiological models of which the role of the Missionary Union is part.” Fr del Prete suggested the Assembly might promote celebrations in 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Fidei Donum Encyclical. (G.R.) (Agenzia Fides 10/5/2006 - Righe 24; Parole 336)
