VATICAN - Cardinal Filoni closes the conference "Listening to America": "We have become a Church that listens, a Church that travels with God's people who live in America"

Thursday, 10 April 2014

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - "Three intense days to listen carefully to a plural continent, full of hope and contradictions. A complex continent, inhabited by many peoples and cultures": with these words Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Urbaniana University, concluded the International Conference "Listening to America: encounters between peoples, cultures and religions; paths for the future", held at Urbaniana University from April 7 to 9.
"From the North, Centre, South America - said the Cardinal - we encounter a form of Christianity which is described as happy, participatory, dynamic, involved in situations of injustice, oppression of man, of the threat of human life since its conception and destruction of the environment". However, America is not "only a Christian" continent, because "there are the great religions thanks to migrants, migrants belonging to the Jewish or Islamic faith and also the disciples of the spiritual and religious traditions in Asia; next to them there are masses of people who no longer believe and are far from religious experience".
Cardinal Filoni stated that "Evangelization is a mission that affects everyone and the general situation of secularization opens new frontiers". "Today, mission and inculturation compare each other with similar societies to a kaleidoscope always on the move - said the Cardinal - . They must be prepared to understand themselves and their environment which is extremely plural, dynamic and ever-changing. In all of this you need to have a clear hierarchy of truths, and try to draw a non-fragmented and confused Christian identity".
Cardinal Filoni concluded with what he called a "provocation": "What does such an event for the Church in America, for the evangelization of this continent and starting from this continent mean? What does the election of Pope Francis for the millions migrated to America, for African-Americans, for the Indians of the Continent, for young people, for women, for the economy, culture, sport, for ecology, for the poor, for the huge cities, the villages, the history of missions and revolutions, for the sects and the Theology of Liberation mean? What does the election of Bergoglio as successor of Peter, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ mean?". (SL) (Agenzia Fides 10/04/2013)


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