FOURTH AMERICAN MISSIONARY CONGRESS: DISCIPLES IN A MULTICULTURAL WORLD

Vatican City, 18 July 2013 (VIS) – The Fourth American Missionary Congress (Ninth Missionary Congress of Latin America) has been convened for this autumn (26 November – 1 December) by the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference and the Pontifical Mission for the archdiocese of Maracaibo, where the meeting will be held. The theme will be "Missionary disciples of Jesus Christ in a secular and multicultural world" and four thousand missionaries from all over the continent are expected to attend.

The American Missionary Congresses, explains the site dedicated to the event, “are marked by the need to provide missionary forces of the continent a favourable space to share and promote reflection, spirituality and missionary experiences. Their purpose is to renew the necessary and permanent commitment of the Church in Latin America, called to fulfil the mission of the Lord beyond geographical, cultural and religious differences”.

With the slogan “Missionary America, share your faith”, twenty-two forums have also been organised, led by experts who will discuss, among other issues: missionary childhood and adolescence, subject and future of the mission; the challenge of youth cultures to the mission of the Church; the inculturation of the liturgy; evangelisation and political ideas; the protection of creation; the missionary challenge of human mobility; the centrality of the Word of God to the mission of the Church; dialogue and proclamation to non-believers; the proclamation of Jesus Christ in Afro-American and indigenous cultures; popular religiosity, a way to evangelisation; evangelising urban cultures: from the temple to the house; and mission and ecumenism.