Santiago de Chile (Fides Service) - Cardinals, bishops priests and other mission experts from all large cities all over America, north and south, are attending a continental meeting "Evangelisation in the Large Cities" promoted by CELAM the Council of Latin American Bishops' Conferences. The meeting 11-13 March is being held at La Florida Schoenstatt Retreat House, in Santiago de Chile. The aim is to discuss challenges to evangelisation in the large cities of the world. Among those taking part Cardinal Norberto Rivera, Archbishop of Mexico City (Mexico); Cardinal Nicholas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez Archbishop of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) , Cardinal Pedro Rubiano Archbishop of Bogota, (Colombia) Cardinal Claudio Humees Archbishop of Sao Paulo (Brazil).
In his opening address Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Archbishop of Santiago (Chile) stressed the importance of the meeting particularly for the archdiocese of Santiago which during a recent Synod identified evangelisation of the various milieus and cultures in the large cities as a major challenge and adopted it as a pastoral priority for 2003-2005. "In view of this, the Cardinal told those present, we are anxious to learn from your rich experience in this field in order to set to work with renewed commitment to evangelize life in our large cities in every dimension." As part of the Programme participants will have a meeting with the President of Chile, Ricardi Lagos and the cardinals and bishops will visit various parishes in Santiago to celebrate Mass for the local people. RZ (Fides Service 11/3/2003 EM lines 23 Words: 263)