Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Caracas (Agenzia Fides) - The Department of Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan Missions, in collaboration with the Pontifical Mission Societies in Venezuela, is relaunching the program known as "Relevo Misionero" (Missionary Relay), which began 30 years ago with the departure of the first Venezuelan missionaries for Africa. Since then, lay people and priests from various dioceses and archdioceses of the country have worked with courage and enthusiasm for evangelization and human promotion outside the country and within national borders.
This program, explains the note sent to Agenzia Fides, offers an experience of discernment and formation aimed at preparing pastoral workers so that, during a certain period of their life, they can offer their contribution to evangelization and human promotion for the benefit of newly established Churches or where the proclamation of the Gospel must be strengthened, both in Venezuela and abroad.
The program officially assumed this name and was consolidated in 1999, as a pastoral project. It is none other than the implementation of the inter-ecclesial missionary cooperation to which the universal Church invites and encourages, as well as the Plenary Council of Venezuela, when it exhorts to encourage the sending of missionaries (priests, religious, lay people) both inside and outside the country.
Throughout the history of the program, 45 missionaries have been sent to different communities including the Archdiocese of Ciudad Bolívar, the rural area of the Diocese of Guanare, the indigenous Warao community in Guariquén in the Diocese of Carúpano and all the Apostolic Vicariates of the country. Some missionaries brought the presence of Christ and the Church of Venezuela in the archdiocese of Kinshasa, in Congo, as well as in the dioceses of Lichinga and Tete, in Mozambique.
To be part of this Program, lay people interested can contact the National Direction of the PMS of Venezuela by email at the following address: relevomisionero@gmail.com. (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 25/2/2021)
