Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – "Building Ecclesial Communion, The Key to the Mission." This is the theme of the Youth Mission Congress, being held October 7 to 10 at the Shalom Center of the monastery of the Canons Regular of the Norbertine Order, in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Congress, organized by the Pontifical Mission Societies in collaboration with several missionary congregations and missionary groups, has been attended by 300 young people from the Dioceses of Kinshasa and Kisantu.
As announced by the Catholic agency DIA in Kinshasa, the organizers of the Congress have come to realize that young people meet several obstacles in their work of spreading the Gospel. These include the lack of experience and training and limited opportunities for discussion, exchanges, and consultations between the different Catholic youth groups. According to the organizers of the Congress, universal openness and solidarity beyond the boundaries of one's own town, parish, etc. is absent in the various movements and groups of young people, and the promotion of the missions is a new concept in youth ministry.
The main purpose of the meeting is, therefore, to spread awareness among young people, making them missionaries in their own environments. This is why the Congress is discussing how to promote missionary awareness in the parish and to encourage young people to engage in missionary activity on a local and universal level.
The Congress will conclude Sunday, October 10 with the ceremony of sending out to the mission and the signing of the final statement. Participants will be sent on missions from October 11 to 23 in several parishes in Kinshasa and Kisantu, to go and carry out missionary awareness activity among young people in light of the upcoming World Mission Day, Sunday, October 24. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 09/10/2010)
