4. CONVOCATION OF THE LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BISHOPS A historical event took place on March 9-12 in Bogotá, Colombia: the First Latin American Congress of Ecclesial Movements and New Communities. The Vice-Minister General of the SFO, Rosalvo Mota, M. Consuelo Nunez (Chelito), Councilor to the CIOFS Conference, and the National Minister of the SFO in Colombia, Jaime H. Perez participated as CIOFS representatives. This Congress united the delegates of the 45 movements and new communities from 23 Latin American countries, 32 bishops, together with the CELAM Presidency, as well as a representative of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. The central theme was "Disciples and Missionaries of Christ Today ". The Christian as Christ’s Disciple, a sign of knowledge in the Latin American Church and of the fundamental urgency of the present moment were central topics: the conservation of faith, the transmission of faith, the fructification of faith in all its dimensions of personal life, in our families, in our nations. The Church is in permanent communion and reflection as in the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the entity proposing this type of convocation, under the direction of its secretary, Mons. Josef Clemens, and its President, Mons. Stanisław Ryłko. In May 2007, in the Marian Sanctuary of Our Lady Aparecida in Brazil, the V General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops will be celebrated. The work from Bogotá and the experience acquired there will be given attention at this future conference which will have as its theme "Disciples and Missionaries of Jesus Christ the reason our people has life in Him" – "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6) As the Holy Father has stated in the message sent to the Congress, "the hope of the Church is that the new movements and new communities will contribute to a renewed impulse to evangelization of all sectors of society, in the world of work and the family, of culture and education, finally in all the fields in which today’s humanity is involved." As in the preceding conferences celebrated in Brazil (1955), in Medellin, Colombia (1968), in Puebla, Mexico (1979) and in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (1979), the Aparecida Conference will stress reflection and the pastoral action of the Church in the Latin American continent. These Conferences have been convened by the Holy Father by request of the Bishops Conference, and it is the Holy Father who welcomes the idea of reunion, who approves the themes to be discussed, who opens the meeting and guides it with his inaugural speech. It’s he who gives the final orientation, who knows when it’s convenient, and who approves all the conclusions, according to what he thinks is most convenient. But all those convocations have only one animator – the Holy Spirit, under whose creator spirit the Church renews itself in a permanent Feast of Pentecost. We may feel that we are in an ecclesial crisis, yet we have the certainty and the confidence that the Hoy Spirit is not in crisis, and we who follow the rule of Francis of Assisi point this out in a particular way. The Holy Father reminded us of the historic example in the person of Francis of Assisi as he told the multitude of the faithful in the "Ecclesial Movements and New Communities" recently convened to celebrate the Vigil of Pentecost in St. Peter’s Plaza, last June 3: "Beloved friends, we want to be such children of God that creation pays attention to, and we can be it, because in baptism the Lord has made us such. Yes, creation and history - they attend, wait for men and women who really are children of God and behave themselves as such. If we consider history, we see how around the monasteries creation has been able to prosper, as in the revival of the Spirit of God in the human hearts becoming the radiance of the Creator Spirit in the whole earth - a splendor who was obscured by the barbarism of the mania of human power and at times quite nearly extinguished. And again, around Francis of Assisi, the same thing happens - it happens wherever the Spirit of God arrives in the souls, this Spirit who our hymn describes as light, love and vigor." The OFS plays an important role in the charisms that give life to the Church, by its maturity as and Order whose journey allows it to present itself as in the vanguard of participation and co-responsibility of the laity in the life of our ecclesial communities. The Latin American Secular Franciscans constitute an obvious majority among several of the lay movements and Orders in the continent, the reason that we have an important mandate to be in permanent harmony with all the preparatory work for the V Conference of the Latin American bishops which will take place in 2007 in Aparecida, Brazil. The Church trusts that the children of Francis of Assisi will continue to work in the mission of restoring the Church.
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