Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Mexico City (Agenzia Fides) – The 92nd Plenary Assembly of the Episcopal Conference of Mexico (CEM) is being held in Cuautitlan Izcalli. There are a hundred Bishops and 3 Cardinals attending this meeting: Juan Sandoval Iñiguez from Guadalajara, Norberto Rivera from Mexico City and Francisco Robles from Monterrey. According to information Fides received, upon opening, on November 7, the importance of education for the Catholic Church was underlined and an educational process based on values in order to achieve peace in the country, in the context of the violence generated by organized crime.
The work of the Assembly, which chose the theme "To teach through evangelizing and evangelize through teaching", began with the Mass celebrated by the Bishop of Ensenada, His Exc. Mgr. Sigifredo Noriega, who urged his brother bishops to be "operators of hope," and insisted that education should be based on values in order to put a stop to violence.
His Exc. Mgr. Carlos Aguiar Retes, Archbishop of Tlalnepantla and President of the Episcopal Conference of Mexico (CEM), in his inaugural speech stressed that this is the right time to invoke the intercession of Blessed John Paul II for Mexico, so as to overcome the spiral of violence and death and retrieve the path of life.
During the work the Bishops will have to analyze the situation of public education in Mexico, starting from a document prepared together with some specialists and referring to the official figures of the Ministry of Education. The document not yet made public, highlights the Catholic Church's commitment to public education and remains very clear that the Bishops do not seek to include religious education in public schools.
The Apostolic Nuncio in Mexico, His Exc. Mgr. Christophe Pierre, in his speech during the first day of work, told the Mexican bishops that their contributions in the field of education "will be useful to better serve society through our institutions of education, to contribute to the formation, starting from the faith, through the people who have a particular responsibility in society, to help all the faithful not to submit to the nihilistic tendencies of postmodern culture, but rather to understand that they should get out of the educational crisis that oppresses them, putting an end to the mistrust and hatred that seem to have become characteristic of our civilization". (CE) (Agenzia Fides 09/11/2011)
