Rome (Fides Service) – On September 11 the Comboni Missionaries, meeting in Rome for the 16th general chapter, concluded the first stage of their work of “looking” consisting in listening and reflecting on interventions by the General Council, secretariats and provinces. The special Chapter Commission noted that the emerging theme was “We Comboni Missionaries are either missionaries or we are nothing” and that identification with mission was recurrent in discussions. Hence the need to define, as a priority understanding of mission.
Next the chapter participants will begin to examine the Instrumentum prepared by the special Commission on the basis of material and collected through a circulated Lineamenta. The Instrumentum laboris, accepted as a basis for the Chapter’s work, will be integrated with themes emerging from the first stage of “looking” and insufficiently developed in the Instrumentum itself. The Chapter members are now engaged in personal reflection in the light of what has emerged so far, to then share opinions in order to elaborate working proposals to bring to the main assembly. The General Chapter with the theme “The Comboni Mission at the start of the 3rd Millennium” opened on 1 September. Founded in 1867 by Blessed Daniele Comboni (1831-1881), who will be canonised by Pope John Paul II on 5 October, the Comboni missionaries, or Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, (MCCI) are today 1.823, are present in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe. (S.L.) (Fides Service 11/9/2003; lines 16 – words 231)