EUROPE/SPAIN - “Awareness of the importance and the urgency of mission ad gentes, as the primordial duty of the Church, is ever deeper”: says Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe takes part in Days for Diocesan Mission Delegates

Friday, 23 June 2006

Javier (Agenzia Fides) - The Days for Diocesan Mission Delegates and Diocesan Directors of Pontifical Mission Societies organised in Javier Navarra, Spain to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Saint Francis Xavier by the Spanish Bishops’ Commission for Missions and the PMS in Spain ended yesterday 22 June.
The first day of work was presided by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, former prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples recently appointed Archbishop of Naples. In his opening address the Cardinal urged the diocesan delegates to foster ever more active participation of the people of God in announcing the Gospel and, with the intercession of Saint Francis Xavier, "revive the joy of following the Lord, keep alive in brothers passion for the mission and offer deserved support to all heralds of the Gospel". The president of the Missions Commission Bishop Ramón del Hoyo, spoke of collaboration between the Commission and the Pontifical Mission Societies.
Cardinal Sepe gave the opening conference on "Mission Ad gentes of the Church today”, and he said "awareness of the importance and the urgency of mission ad gentes, as the primordial duty of the Church, is ever deeper". Three elements help to understand the urgency: "cultural changed due to secularisation and globalisation; ambivalence registered between this process and "a return to the sacred and the religious”, phenomenon proper to the secularised society; the necessity of a new missionary awareness able to face incorrect interpretations of interreligious dialogue and the theology of religions”. “The Church faces a new challenge in evangelisation where there are no frontiers and the voice of the Church resounds on come occasions as a sign of minority and in other against the environment. The demands of Christians faith rooted in Christ and the necessity of mission” the Cardinal said.
During the mass in the chapel of Javier Castle, Cardinal Sepe thanked Spain for its efforts to sustain missionary activity with economic support and personnel underlining the "lasting testimony offered by Francis Xavier: devoted to Jesus he was all unlimited generosity, enthusiasm and complete trust in God, passionate love for the poor” and he said: "participation in the work of first evangelisation is more than ever necessary today ".
On 22 June Xaverian missionary Fr. Carlos Collantes gave a paper on "Francis, enthusiastic pilgrim" in which he developed the figure of Saint Francis Xavier and his missionary work, underlining the Saint’s human and Christian virtues: trust, service, love for the poor, interior freedom... Then Jesuit Fr Joseph Doan, who spent over then years in prison in Vietnam, and Daughter of Charity Sr. Pilar Acerete, with over 40 years of service to lepers in India, offered their poignant testimony, stirring in all the desire to cooperate more generously in missionary animation.
Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, before departing for Rome, visited the PMS offices in Madrid, accompanied by the national director Bishop Francisco Pérez González. During his visit the Cardinal said his years at the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples he offered him the opportunity and the joy of seeing for himself the great missionary work of the Church, especially in Asia where there are signs of openness to evangelisation. And on his journeys he saw that the beginning of the realisation of the prophetic words of John Paul II: "Asia is the future of the Church". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 23/6/2006, righe 45, parole 620)


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