WORDS OF ARCHBISHOP ULLOA MENDIETA,
REPRESENTING THE CELAM AT THE
XX PLENARY ASSEMBLY OF SECAM
Eminence
FRIDOLIN CARDINAL AMBONGO
Archbishop of Kinshasa
President of the Symposium of Episcopal
Conferences of Africa and Madagascar SECAM
Dear brothers in the Episcopate, members of the XX Plenary Assembly of SECAM:
Representing the Presidency of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council, and the 22 Episcopal Conferences that comprise it.
We are filled with joy and gratitude to be present at this assembly held in Kigali, a land that holds in its heart both pain and hope, and from where the testimony of a living, resilient, and deeply rooted Church in the Gospel arises.
May this encounter allow us to walk together as associations of episcopal conferences of the Great South (Africa, Asia, and Latin America), with a spirit of communion, a process that has been strengthening in recent years and has been very recently expressed in the Message “Called for Climate Justice and the Common Home,” which we jointly signed, on the importance of a decisive action by the rulers of the countries to face climate change that affects the entire human family and that needs relevant and urgent measures that must be taken in the next COP-30, to be held in Belem do Pará, Brazil.
We also recall your kind invitation to the SECAM Plenary in July 2022 in Accra (Ghana) in which CELAM was able to share
its experiences of the processes of the First Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean.
CELAM, as an organ of service to the Episcopal Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean in favor of communion, reflection, and collaboration, has celebrated 70 years of life on July 25 of this year and has sought to exercise a prophetic voice that has been expressed in the five General Conferences of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopate.
These are 70 years inspired by the Second Vatican Council, since the Second General Conference in Medellín, 1968, had the purpose of receiving and assimilating the influence of the Council in Latin America and the Caribbean. Subsequently, in the troubled 70s, the Puebla Conference was held in 1979, as a reception of Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi Encyclical; then in the V Centenary of the Evangelization in the Continent, with the General Conference of Santo Domingo in 1992, until the moment of grace in Aparecida in 2007, the V General Conference that recognizes the present era, not only as an era of changes but as a true change of era.
At the CELAM Assembly in Tegucigalpa, 2019, it was agreed to carry out a process of Renewal and Restructuring of CELAM in order to respond to the signs of the times in the service, and after a participatory process, its current structure is established, organized according to the SEE-JUDGE-ACT, which gives rise to the 4 Pastoral Centers.
In the theme of SEE, for the analysis of reality, the Knowledge Management Center (CGC),
To JUDGE the reality in the light of the signs of the times, the Biblical Theological Pastoral Center (CEBITEPAL).
To ACT the Center for Networks and Pastoral Action (CEPRAP) that works with the ecclesial networks of the various specific pastorals of the Continent, and as a TRANSVERSAL center, the Center for Communication (CPC).
With these 4 Centers, the processes are being regrouped, and pastoral articulations are being generated that are so necessary to walk synodally in the perspective of participation, communion, and Mission.
The three great pastoral axes of the CELAM Global Plan mark the course and the perspective: (a) Integral Human Development and Integral Ecology, which includes social, cultural, and ecological dreams; (b) itinerary of the missionary disciples that includes the pastoral care of catechesis, vocations, youth, laity, family, education, and culture and others, (c) CELAM as a School of synodality in the Continent.
For greater participation of the continental episcopal instances in collegiality and in search of articulating the evangelizing work, the 4 regions of Latin America and the Caribbean have been constituted: the Central America and Mexico Region (CAMEX), the Caribbean Region, the Bolivarian region (Andean countries) and the Southern Cone Region, in a process of decentralization and participation.
Likewise, the articulation with other continental ecclesial instances such as CLAR (Conference of Religious and Religious of Latin America and the Caribbean), CARITAS, REPAM, and others.
Dear brothers, our presence here today, in addition to expressing our gratitude, wants to be a sign of our willingness to continue walking and working together in synodality, in communion with the universal Church, so that people may have Life and Life in abundance (Jn 10:10).
We are united by a history of suffering and hope, of resistance and of faith incarnated in our peoples. In our continent there are more than 200 million people of African descent, who have enriched us with their joy, their spirituality, and their hope. This makes Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean two sister continents, with a rich spirituality, humanity, and prophecy. With this meeting we begin a new stage of missionary fraternity.
We know that it is not enough to preserve structures. In a globalized world it is urgent to walk together as a disciple and missionary Church, allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit towards new forms of incarnation of the Kingdom.
From CELAM, we are convinced that synodality, mutual listening, shared discernment, and co-responsibility pastoral are paths that bring us closer and enrich the communion between our sister Churches.
May this meeting in Kigali, a land of reconciliation and healed memory, be a seed of new bonds, of mutual learning, and of pastoral collaboration beyond oceans and geographies.
We entrust this path to the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America, and of the holy martyrs of Africa, so that together we may continue building a Samaritan, incarnate, serving, and prophetic Church.
With esteem, communion, and hope in the Risen Christ,
+JOSÉ DOMINGO ULLOA MENDIETA, O.S.A.
Metropolitan Archbishop of Panama
Second Vice President of CELAM
