Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Assisi (Agenzia Fides) - Italy’s 4th national week of mission formation and spirituality held in Assisi concluded on 30 August. The event, organised by the National Office for Missionary Cooperation among the Churches, brought together over 180 participants, including pastoral workers, priests, missionaries, men and women religious, lay people of various ages involved in missionary activity who hears various messages of hope from Italy and many parts of the world. They realised that they too area bearers of hope, sharing the missionary experience in fidelity to the theme of the Mission Week “Bears of Hope in the World”, in harmony with the upcoming National Catholic Church Meeting in Verona in October .
One of the speakers, Bishop Fuad Twal, coadjutor of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, offered a clear picture of the situation of Christians in the Holy Land, the suffering of the Palestinian people, the consequences of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, determination to hope against hope. Ample space was dedicated to places of hope in Italy: Adriana Cattai, a co-founder of the Associazione Santi Apostoli Pietro e Paolo, told of the joys and fatigue of serving and accompanying prisoners in the penitentiary of Civitavecchia; Zelinda, from the Centro Volontari della Sofferenza in Perugia, shared her experience of serving with hope despite a physically limiting form of nanism (a genetic abnormality resulting in short stature); Mirko, a member of the Comunità Nuovi Orizzonti, told of his descent into hell in drug addiction and his new life when he discovered God’s Love and has since formed his own family.
Testimony offered participants a chance to visit mission territories such as China and Papua New Guinea thanks to PIME missionary Fr Ciro Biondi, national secretary of the Italian branch of the Pontifical Missionary Union; the Holy Land with stories by Fr Sergio Marcazzani; Bolivia, with the intervention by Fr Alberto Brignoli, Fidei Donum priest from the diocese of Bergamo, who spent nine years of his priesthood among the Checua people. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 1/9/2006 - righe 26; parole 337)
