AMERICA/GUATEMALA - CAM 2 Conclusions officially handed over to diocesan delegates for implementation in ordinary pastoral care: mission must be the basis of diocesan and parish pastoral plans

Friday, 2 April 2004

Guatemala (Fides Service) - The Conclusions of the Second American Mission Congress CAM2 were officially handed over to delegates from every diocese in Guatemala and representatives of church groups, movements and institutions who took part in that important ecclesial event in 2003, by Bishop Julio Cabrera Ovalle, Bishop of Jalapa and President of the Missions’ Commission of the Conference of Bishops together with Bishop Gerardo Flores, Bishop emeritus of Verapaz. Now the Church in Guatemala will work to render the conclusions operative in every particular Church.
The ceremony, which recalled those memorable and intense days of CAM2, was presided by Bishop Cabrera Ovalle who was also President CAM2 Central Organising Committee. Father. Santiago Otero, secretary adjunct of the Bishops’ Conference summarised the conclusions and Father Juan María Piu, a member of the CAM2 Central Organising Committee, highlighted in the light of the conclusions the challenges facing the Church today. Emphasis was also given to the valid and generous commitment on the part of the Church in Guatemala for the success of the Second American Mission Congress described by Pope John Paul II in his Message for the occasion, a Continental Upper Room of Mission.
The most important aspects of the Conclusions demanding priority attention are the following: integral missionary formation for all pastoral workers, especially those involved with the means of communication to enable them to make better use of the media leading them to be a precious tool for proclaiming the Gospel of life rather than a tool of manipulation; mission must be the basis of all diocesan and parish pastoral plans; priority must be given to social pastoral in the ambit of the family and human mobility (migration); greater critical awareness with regard to globalisation must be promoted.
Moreover the Church on the continent of America is called to assume its prophetic mission of announcing the Good News, to give more importance to the testimony of its martyrs and assume the process of inculturation; the parish must become a privileged place of encounter with the Risen Lord and therefore it must be a missionary parish. The conclusive document of CAM2 stresses that evangelisation has been consolidated on the continent and mission “ad gentes” is beginning to be an incisive force. Nevertheless it underlines that separation of faith and life is an obstacle to evangelisation and opens the way to conditions of inhuman life in which most of the brothers and sisters live. The most important points for a future of hope for the Church in America are the option for the poor, popular piety and the inculturation of the Gospel. The challenges to face are represented instead by globalisation, human migration, fundamentalist groups and new religious movements. The urgent need to promote ‘globalisation of solidarity’ starting from littleness, poverty and martyrdom was also underlined. (R.Z.) (Agenzia Fides 2/4/2004; righe 36 - parole 473)


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