(ANS – Maracaibo) – The fourth American Missionary Congress and eleventh Latin American Missionary Congress began on 26 November with the Eucharist celebrated at the Basilica of Our Lady of Chiquinquira. Seventy bishops, 450 priests and more than three thousand religious and lay missionaries took part.

Among the participants from all the countries of the American continent there are fifty members of the Salesian Family, including four Salesian Bishops from Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela, SDBs, FMA, Daughters of the Divine Saviour, Salesian Cooperators and Past Pupils of Don Bosco.

The Congress takes place in the Events Palace, with the theme "Disciples, Missionaries in Jesus Christ, from America, in a secularized multicultural world."  It is another step in carrying out the directives of the Fifth General Conference of CELAM (Conference of Bishops of Latin America) held in Aparecida in 2007.

In the afternoon of 26 November, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Special Envoy of the Holy Father Pope Francis, presided over the opening Eucharistic celebration during which he addressed the participants. "In our Congress,” he said, “we put Christ at the centre. We want to listen to the Master’s voice, to hear his message, make it part of our lives, and prepare for the mission."

On 27 and 28 November there were four major conferences in the morning and workshops in the afternoon. There were twenty-two different themes in the FORUM, where the participants were able to choose from the main topics: Discipleship, Pastoral Conversion, secularization, multiculturalism and Missio ad Gentes.

On 28 November, Fr Raul Biord, SDB from Venezuela gave a lecture on "The urgency of the mission in the areas of New Evangelization and the Missio ad Gentes, " in the light of Pope Francis’s recent apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

The Fourth American Missionary Congress will end on 1 December with the celebration of the Eucharist and a new commissioning of missionaries, priests, religious and laity to mission and to the missio ad gentes in America and other continents. The venue of the next congress will be announced.

Published 29/11/2013