Aid to the Church in Need: Latin America: Evangelising secular South America

Latin America: Evangelising secular South America

Posted by Press release on 6/4/2009, 10:44 am
Board Administrator

ACN News, Monday, 6th April 2009 – Latin America

Evangelising secular South America

By John Newton

IN the face of growing secularisation, one of Latin America’s leading bishops has signalled a huge opportunity for evangelisation.
In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Andrés Stanovnik of Corrientes, Argentina, vice president of CELAM (the Bishop Conference of Bishops in Latin America) described the existence of “a very secularised culture” among some of the continent’s governments.
CELAM’s “grand continental mission” sees the Catholic Church in 24 Latin American countries launching evangelistic activities including distributing literature, appointing lay missionaries to work in parishes and organising Bible study groups.
The mission has received key funding from ACN, the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians.
Archbishop Stanovnik said: “The mission is already a success in those countries where it has begun, now there is the process of making it a reality across the continent.”
He continued: “The biggest challenge is evangelisation – the proclamation of Christ to the Church in Latin America.”
Archbishop Stanovnik said: “We believe the encounter with Christ answers the deepest desires of the human being.
“The encounter with the living Christ humanises our being and relationships and gives us principles for using the goods we have.”
He went on to describe how this encounter was the key to understanding life: “When we don’t know God in Christ, reality becomes mysterious but if we know God then we are also able to also understand reality, we know where we come from, where we are going to.
“In the Church it is a real necessity to know Christ and to be a missionary of the Church – the Church feels that it is essential to have this deep encounter with Christ – and from this encounter with the living Christ one can announce this experience to others.”
To the challenge of evangelisation he added the challenges of poverty and the environment.
Archbishop Stanovnik said: “The Church increasingly understands that the environment is a gift of God, and as it is a gift of God humans can not appropriate the environment for themselves.”
Again he underlined how only an encounter with Jesus could help people to care for the marginalised and preserve the environment.
He said: “The Church in Latin America has a lot of centres for those living with AIDS and other diseases.
“It is very important to first encounter suffering people, stay with them and help them in their problems. Mercy and profound humanity are very important.”
Archbishop Stanovnik thanked ACN’s benefactors for their support for all the work in South America: “The presence of ACN is a very important for the Church in Latin America – it has contributed for projects in evangelisation, principally in the formation of priests and pastoral co-workers.
“For that reason I would like to thank you in the name of all CELAM for the evangelising and humanising work of ACN.”
Archbishop Stanovnik concluded: “Thank you to all the benefactors, who are in some way reflecting the dynamism of the divine love of God – God bless you all.”

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org