About 800 people took part in the 5th National Missionary Congress which was held in the archdiocese of Manaus. A great opportunity to boost awareness and missionary action inside and outside Brazil
(World and Mission) – Over the last fifty years, the Church in America has been concerned with building paths of a theology rooted in the territory and, for this reason, organizes the so-called American Missionary Congresses (CAM), coordinated by the Pontifical National Missionary Societies (PMS), which they seek to reawaken more and more, in every baptized person, the commitment to the universal mission, illuminated by mission to the nations. Five of these continental events have already taken place and the next one will be in November 2024, in Puerto Rico.
In Brazil, the 5th National Missionary Congress (5Cmn) took place from 10 to 15 November, hosted by the archdiocese of Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon. The meeting had the general objective of missionary “converting” the local ecclesial communities into a true mission to nations. The theme chosen was: “Go! From the local Church to the ends of the world.” A Church, therefore, “outgoing”. The motto took up that of the missionary month: “Hearts burning, feet on the move”.
In 2019 Pope Francis had convened the bishops in a special assembly for the Synod entitled “Amazon: new paths for the Church and for an integral ecology”.
In this 5Cmn, around 800 congress participants, including cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, seminarians, indigenous people and other lay people from all over Brazil, prayed, reflected, discussed and debated on some specific themes, among which: learning new ways of missionary action of the Church in the Amazon; give impetus to awareness and missionary action in the local Churches; start the journey of the Church in Brazil towards Cam6; guarantee a Church in the geographical and existential peripheries; integrate the missionary forces of the Church in Brazil; encourage inter-church cooperation through the Sister Churches Project and projects to nations; finally, celebrate the missionary journey of the Church as the people of God.
The current national president of the PMS, Sister Regina da Costa Pedro, missionary of the Immaculate, shared with the participants the reflections and the final message were carried out by. In the Eucharistic celebration that closed the great event, a new auxiliary bishop was consecrated, Monsignor Zenildo Lima da Silva, a native of Amazonia, destined for pastoral work in this vast northern region of Brazil.
(Photo: POM Brasil)