Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Dar es Salaam (Fides Service) – A local Church ever more committed to missionary activity and the inculturation of the faith also using the media. This picture emerges from an annual report sent to Fides Service by the Mission Awareness Committee (MAC) of the Religious Superiors Association of Tanzania. Among the many interesting events reported: an Inculturation Week in March which consisted of Mission Awareness Seminars and liturgical celebrations using African and Indian symbols; a one day Mission Awareness Seminar on 23 February sponsored by the Tanzania Young Catholic Students attended by 110 young people; half day mission awareness Seminar sponsored by the Pontifical Mission Societies office of Morogoro diocese attended by 90 participants, who reflected on the missionary role of religious and laity.
MAC members are working closely with Father Liberatus Mwenda, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Tanzania. Father Mwenda asked MAC to assist diocesan PMS directors in various projects of missionary animation and evangelisation programmes. There is a close working relationship between PMS and MAV especially in the archdioceses of Dar es Salaam and Mwanza, and the dioceses of Zanzibar, Morogoro, Iringa and Mbeya.
MAC is also deeply committed in the field of social communications. Five missionaries are working on a one hour panel discussion in Swahili on the Year of the Rosary, to be broadcast on Radio Tanzania. Another broadcasting company Radio Tumaini interviewed three Tanzania deacons of the Society of the Precious Blood studying at the Salvatorian Institute in Morogoro who went to Chile in December 2001 as the first African missionaries of their society. MAC continues to help coordinate four 50 minute video productions a year by Video Tumaini that are broadcast on the Swahili programme of Coastal Television Network. MAC works closely with the editors of the different Swahili missionary magazines in Tanzania. LM (Fides Service 25/6/2003 EM lines 24 Words: 323)
