AFRICA/EGYPT - Young Egyptian Catholics in the footsteps of St. Thomas Aquinas

Wednesday, 25 November 2020 middle east oriental churches youth mission theology spirituality catechism

abouna.org

EGYPT

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Minya (Agenzia Fides) - Egyptian youth who join the "family of St. Thomas Aquinas" affirm that their intention "is not to seek the glory of the Catholic Church as such, but to witness the glory of Christ". To this end, they want to make a specific contribution with a wide range of initiatives aimed at promoting the rediscovery, study and dissemination of Catholic theology and spirituality in its essential characteristics. The youth group bears the name of "Doctor Angelicus" to express their devotion to the great saint of the Dominicans, the "theological giant" of the universal Church. They are following the path of a unique "return to the sources" and in doing so they are also at the service of ecumenism and full communion with the brothers and sisters of other churches. The Family of Saint Thomas Aquinas received an important recognition for the merits of its initiatives during the first Conference on Christian Education, organized in mid-November by the Egyptian Catholic Media Office and the Franciscan Cultural Center at the Franciscan Convent located in Cairo neighborhood of Mokattam.
The Family of St. Thomas was founded in 2019 on the initiative of a group of young people who visited the Coptic Catholic Cathedral of Minya, moved by the intuition of Hani William, who in an interview with the Arab portal abouna.org. explains the activity and structure of the "family". All the offices and roles are carried out alternately by the members of the Family, which also makes use of the accompaniment of a pastoral assistant, a role currently exercised by the priest, Saïd Luca. In the first years of activity, the initiative was actively supported by Father Malek Sami, parish priest of the cathedral of Minya at the time.
The young members of the Family of St. Thomas Aquinas (in the photo with the Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak ) take the first steps in the field of scientific and academic research on ecclesiastical subjects, aiming to disseminate with informative brochures - so far 45 have been published - the teachings and doctrine of the Catholic Church. The members of the "Family" also animate conferences and meetings in parishes throughout the country, stage plays with Christian content and student camps that are organized in the villages of the Egyptian province of Minya during the summer. Last year, due to the suspension of many initiatives due to the pandemic, the "Family" aimed to use social networks above all to disseminate short videos showing the contents of the films released by the American Franciscan father Casey Cole (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 25/11/2020)