Medellin (Fides Service) – On its path towards the American Mission Congress (CAM 2), from 10 to 12 July in Medellin the Church in Colombia held a 2nd regional missionary meeting with the motto “we are missionaries for the whole world”. The meeting was attended by 120 delegates from dioceses in the ecclesiastical provinces of Medellin and Santa Fe de Antioquia.
“The meeting was above all a time of deep communion and sharing of missionary experiences, missionary formation of clergy and laity, missionary pastoral in our parishes and missionary spirituality today” said Xaverian missionary Father Stefano Berton, mission vocations animator in Medellin archdiocese. Clear and important signs that the Church in Colombia is on a missionary path towards the ad gentes dimension, were the resolutions adopted at the end of the Meeting. Father Berton explains: “Collaborate jointly in a mission of first evangelisation in a region which is determined by the two ecclesiastical provinces involved Medellin and Santa Fe de Antioquia; missionary formation of laity and clergy; promote the Pontifical Mission Societies to render every parish more missionary; create a regional committee for co-ordination”.
The meeting closed with a solemn celebration of Mass and the sending of missionaries, not only the participants, called to carry out the resolutions adopted, but in particular the sending on mission of two diocesan priests who will go to work in Mozambique. “This is a concrete sign that something new is growing in this Church: a Church in Colombia ever more missionary ” Father Berton concludes. (R.Z.) (Fides Service 24/7/2003 – lines 23; words 275)