1 MISSIONARY AND VOCATIONAL ANIMATION & PROMOTION IN AFRICA

1.1 Preliminaries

1.1.1 Cultural and Socio-Political Contexts

Our Institutes are present in African countries that suffer from the serious problems of the continent: absolute poverty, as in Ethiopia, which is the 5th poorest country in the world; war in Ivory Coast, Liberia, Congo and Somalia; very high average of AIDS in South Africa and Mozambique; generalized corruption, endemic diseases, illiteracy, low level of school attendance, very weak political systems.

Cultural areas are very diverse as far as culture, language, history and former systems of colonization are concerned.

1.1.2 Religious Contexts

Although they all form one only dynamic and expanding Church, Christians are numerically a minority in a big religious mosaic. The majority follow the Traditional African Religions; Islamism is very strong in Ginea-Bissau, Somalia, Tanzania and in vast areas of Mozambique, Ivory Coast and Kenya. In some countries, various religious groups and sects are very numerous. The majority of the population in these nations are still at the level of the first announcement and are ad gentes mission countries in the traditional sense and in the modern sense (absolute poverty).

1.1.3 Diverse Contexts

Our missionary action and our first steps in our mission and vocation promotion are being organized and carried through in these diverse and difficult contexts. There is no tradition to lean on in these areas. We are taking our first steps in countries that, up to recently, were considered mission fields. However, the little we are doing is already producing fruits.

1.2 The First Organized Steps

1.2.1 Priority is given to collaboration with the local Church because, in many instances, our Institute is the only pastoral force, or one of the few pastoral forces of importance, in the diocese, or even of the country.

1.2.2 Bishops do not yet feel the need for mission promotion. Their Churches are not yet solid enough for that. In some of these countries, such as Ivroy Coast and Mozambique, our vocational priority is for vocations for the dioceses, since the local clergy is very scarce or doesn’t even exist.

1.2.3 Notwithstanding all this, and keeping in mind the diversity of eccesial situtations, our Institute believes that the moment has arrived to organize our Mission Promotion and our Vocation Promotion in Africa As a matter of fact, it has begun walking on this road, and it has already spelt out its objectives and its programmation of activities.

1.2.4 Each Region is requested to have a minimum of organization and of programmation. Concretely, the Regional Mission and Vocation Secretariats have been organized, they have Regional Directors, even if not always full time, with representatives in the most important groups of the Region – even if, in this case too, they are not always full time. Whenever possible, the Regional Secretariat is made up of IMC and MC (Consolata Missionary Sisters) members.

1.2.5 During the last Mission and Vocation Continental Meeting, the decision was made to organize IMC MVP (Mission and Vocation Promotion) centers in the folowing Regions: Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique. Progress has been made in this area.

1.3 Operational Policies

Necessary elements:

1.31 Need to have a deep knowledge of the cultures of the peoples where we work, their history and their socio-political environment. Decision to inculturate our MVP so that it will have its roots in the deep values of the peoples, in their institutions and in their life expressions.

1.3.2 Being clearly aware of our need to do Mission and Vocation Promotion.

1.3.3 By our work, to help the local Church to become conscious of its missionary dimension. We will do that by becoming members of diocesan and parochial committees and by inserting ourselves in small Christian communities.

1.3.4 In the organization of our MVP (IMC-MC) to keep always in mind the concrete situations of the local Church and the orientations of the Episcopate and of the PMO (Pontifical Missionary Works).

1.3.5 To favor unity of action among our two Institutes (IMC/MC) and with the other pastoral agents. We will also try to get the laity involved in the programmation of our MVP activities.

1.3.6 To accompany individual possible candidates along specific formative paths.

1.3.7 To come to know the families of the candidates and to enhance their contact with our communities.

1.4 Activities Already Accomplished
-- Annual meeting of the Regional Secretariat IMC/MC, or IMC only, to plan its annual activities.
-- Periodical meetings to evaluate and update the programs and the formation of the promoters.
-- Visits to schools and to parishes.
-- Formative meetings with the young: monthly, yearly.
-- Missionary Month Campaign in connection with the PMO.
-- Activities by the MVP at the occasion of Religious Professions, Priestly Ordinations, and of several kinds of IMC anniversaries.
-- Preparation of subsidies for the MVP activities.

1.5 Problems and Difficulties
-- Local Churches do not yet consider MVP a priority.
-- Scarcity of local clergy in several countries.
-- Difficulty of organizing our pastoral activities together with other Congregations and/or with the local Church.
-- The image that missionaries present to the young, and the quality of life of our religious communities.
-- The cultural models that we find in every nation.
-- The impact of globalization on the youth.
-- Since many youngsters enter seminaries and religious orders, we must ask what are the real reasons why they do so. We must help youngsters to purify their intentions.
-- The low quality level of public schooling, at the elementary and high school levels, which push youngsters to enter seminaries and religious orders, with the intention of leaving afterwards (Mozambique, Tanzania).

2 MISSION AND VOCATION PROMOTION IN AMERICA

2.1 A Compex Context

2.1.1 Latin America is agitated by quivers of renewal that can’t seem to take off because of serious problems: uncompromising systems, socio-economic imbalances, drug traffic, urban poverty, guerrilla.

Here are some motivations passed on by its Bishops’ Conferences:
-- the situation of the indigenous Afro-American populations who are deprived of their land, their history and their culture;
-- political systems that prevent the majority of the people from participating in political life;
-- the very bad distribution of economic resources (“a few are rich, a lot are poor”);
-- the existence of large underdeveloped areas, with dramatic results on millions of people;
-- fast urbanization and industrialization that favors the multiplication of vast belts of extreme poverty, marginalization and criminality (“urban poverty”).

2.1.2 The Church suffers under such a complex set of problems. Bishops, priests, religious and lay people engage themselves more and more in pastoral activities of sensitization, animation and liberation. The work of evangelization shifts from the stage of erecting buildings for social and religious purposes to choosing new avenues that tend to help people to live the Gospel in a process that produces a new evangelization.

2.1.3 The IMC is inserted in this complex socio-ecclesial environment through the activities of its personnel in rather diverse areas such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. The North American Region must be treated separately. We’ll try to indentify the general courses of our MVP in the continent.

2.2 Organization

Our IMC Regions generally have a regional secretariat for the mission. The activities of ongoing formation, pastoral activities and Justice and Peace are part of this secretariat. In some Regions, these activities are delt with separately. In almost all these Regions, the Regional MVP committee works together with the MC committee. Some cases:
-- Argentina: No collaboration yet among the two institutes;
-- Brazil: The Central Committee is formed by members from the IMC and the MC. They have a global project. Their programmation and activities are done together;
-- Colombia: Programmation and activities done together;
-- Roraima: There is collaboration among the two institutes;
-- Venezuela: The General Committee is composed of members from both institutes.
-- North America: There is no Regional Committee nor is there a Regional coordinator.
Besides the central committee, there are MVP centers in the various groups or zones.

2.3 Objectives

The objectives are: Mission animation of the local Church, missionary formation at several lvels, vocation promotion specifically for the IMC, gathering subsidies for missionary projects and activities.

2.4 Activities

Activities are done together with parishes, schools and other institutions. We do Mission animation days in parishes, retreats, formative meetings, vocational meetings, vocational accompaniment, work camps, sensitization camps (eg., Nós existimos, etc), collaboration with our magazines, our website, participation in missionary congresses (national, continental), preparation and publication of books and other materials, schools of missionary formation, courses for animators and promoters. In some Regions, the activites of Justice and Peace have been integrated into the activities of Mission Promotion.

2.5 Collaboration

Depending on the local sensitivity and and availability, in several Regions we collaborate with the local Church (bishops conference, dioceses, parishes, conference of religious) and with the PMO.

2.6 Problems

2.6.1 In the Families:
Disintegration of families; affective, economic and relational instability; familial violence; separations, abandonments; abortions; sexual abuses and violence; loss of human and Christian values; loss of the roles of father and mother.

2.6.2 In Schools:
Elite ideology, consumeristic ideology, secularized culture, academic formation without vocational orientation, incompetent teachers, drug consumption.

2.6.3 In Parishes:
Lack of missionary consciousness; lack of ministries for the lay people; little interest in pastoral activities for youth; pastoral activities that are mainly sacramentalistic, often done with little depth and lack of witnessing. Christians contribute easily, but with no sense of openness to the missions, especially in North America.

2.6.4 In MVP in Particular:

The rapid changes in the world of the young; the young’s lack of creativity in answering today’s challenges; having to work with other pastoral forces; lack of programmation and evaluation; integration of Justice and Peace and MVP; the fact that there are different projects for the IMC and the MC Lay Missionaries and the lack of Consolata Lay Missionaries; lack of full-time M&V promoters; lack of professional preparation for our M&V animators and promoters; integration of lay people in our activities of Mission and Vocation Promotion; lack of communication among the Regions; confusion about the ad gentes; little trust in the young; difficulties in the accompaniment of vocations; little interest of pastors in mission and vocation pastoral activities.

2.7 Opportunities:

The first and most important opportunity is that there are many young people in society and in the Church today; they possess many values such as energy and a sense of renewal; their looking for new forms of religiosity; their answers to religious movements and to vocational proposals; their demands in relation to us; their engagement in volunteer services and in the NGOs; our centers of Mission and Vocation Promotion; our parishes and colleges; requests that we receive for activities in non-IMC-MC parishes and colleges; the team work done by our two institutes; our opening up to lay missionaries; the new openings in ad gentes and the new openings of MVP being done or under study.

2.8 Suggestions:

Changing our mentality on MVP in our Institute; continuing the collaboration between our two institutes, or starting it where it hasn’t yet been done, in our regional committees, in our programmation and in our activities; having more people working full time in our MVP, and allotting more money to its activities; taking advantage of our own experts, we must organize the formation of our promoters on a continental level; finding and implementing the same kind of way for the Consolata Lay missionaries; studying and analyzing the demands of the present-day world, and the reality of the world of the young; finding new ways of accompanying vocations; integrating the various sectors of mission and vocation promotion and of Justice and Peace and the laity; transforming our parishes and colleges into true missionary centers; creating an Internet Site and keeping it updated, using expert technicians; doing mission animation and promotion also in universities; in North America, change Mission appeals from money collecting into true occasions for mission and vocation promotion.

3. MISSION & VOCATION PROMOTION IN EUROPE

3.1 General context

3.1.1 Our Institute and the Church do not live in the clouds, nor in a Platonic universe. We live in both today’s world and in history. Reality is diverse and in continuous change. World and history change. Thus, in every age and occasion, we must discern the signs of the times. Discernment has the purpose of facing the pastoral challenges of the present time and of society and giving them the needed pastoral mediations.

In order to understand Mission and Vocation animation and promotion in our Institute, we must refer to the specific signs that we find in each country we are in. We will mention here some of greater interest.

3.1.2 With the fall of the gods of modernity and of the absolute ideologies, present-day man feels free. There’s a more mature consciousness of the non-alienability of the person, more thirst for justice and peace, more respect for nature. We also see a greater interest in inculturation, in the new techniques of communication, in religious pluralism, more zeal for international solidarity and for social and economic globalization.

3.1.3 The Churches where we live (in Italy, Portugal, Spain), go back to the first times of Christianity. They find themselves in a growing process of secularization of conscience, culture and society.
I do not refer here to the positive concept of secularization, the legitimate autonomy of the terrestrial realities (GS 36). I refer to the concept of secularization as modernity understands it. Modern man sets himself in the center of the universe. This kind of secularization presents anthropological implications that are very important for us to know -- if we want to understand the present world situation.

-- Systematic renunciation to the questions about absolute truths, the meaning of life and the last realities; the negation of the qualitative jump between nature and the human being; separation between freedom and reason; objective reality and experimental sciences become the ultimate and only criterium; consensus becomes a source of morality and of positive justice.

3.1.4 These signs, which the Media broadcasts and the political powers adopt as their own,
model the conscience and the praxis of the majority of people in Western Europe. This critical attitude is also accepted and maintained by the majority of intellectuals and of the universities. There is talk of a post-metaphysical era, of a society that is post-Christian, of an era of ‘void’.

3.1.5 In front of all this, the Pope urges a ‘new evangelization’ which has as object, not the missio ad gentes and/or pastoral activities for the faithful, but those people who live in the geographical areas of the second secularization. This new evangelization demands a new vigor, new methods and new expressions.

It is in the horizon of this new evangelization that the projects of our Mission and Vocation Promotion in Europe must take place. From here must our action develop, and with this situation in mind must we formulate our general and our particular objectives and lines of action in Europe.

3.2 Situation of our Mission and Vocation Animation-Promotion

3.2.1 In the three Regions, we are at present going through a deep revision, a time of discernment that will lead us to a redimensioning of our work, our structures and our personnel, accentuating the need for the missionary dimension. Some activities will be ended, new openings will take place inside these same regions (presence among immigrants, in the suburbs of the cities, in areas of social conflicts, etc.) or outside them (under study are openings in Bilo-Russia or somewhere else).

3.2.2 Portugal. For lack of personnel, we have abandoned the Seminary in the family and the Middle Seminary. There are two centers of Mission and Vocation Promotion: one in the North (Ermezinde) and one in the Center (Cacém). Fatima remains with its specific reality. The road to follow is direct Mission Promotion. We are preparing a meaningful presence in a suburb of Lisbon.

3.2.3 Spain. In Spain, there are three Mission Promotion centers: one for meetings (Saragozza), one for activities with immigrants (Elche), and one for the regular activities of MVP (Malaga). We have no personnel that is ready to undertake specific activities. At present, there is no seminary.

3.2.4 Italy. Redimensioning has taken place. There are now five (5) MVP centers in the Region: Bevera, Certosa di Pesio, Martina Franca, Nervesa and Turin. A new community was opened recently in the South, in Platì, and a center for the specific work with immigants in Turin.

3.3 Organization and Programming

3.3.1 Regional Secretariat of MVP
There exists a Regional Secretariat of MVP in each one of the Regions. It is made up of a Regional Coordinator and members of the local centers.

Every year, there is a continental meeting to examine and coordinate the activities, and to prepare a general common program. Keeping in mind the general program and their concrete situation, each Region and center prepare their own programming. There also are bimonthly meetings with the formators.

3.3.2 In certain instances, as in Portugal and Spain, the regional secretariat is made up of Consolata missionaries, Consolata missionary sisters and Consolata lay people. In other instances (in Italy), there is direct cooperation in the programming of the activities. There also is collaboration with other missionary institutes, the Pontifical Missionary Works and Dioceses.

3.4 Objectives

3.4.1 The general objective is the ad gentes mission promotion in and of the local Church.

3.4.2 The general objective of vocational promotion is to make a concrete ad gentes IMC vocational proposal. This is followed by the vocational accompaniment of the young people who are interested. Every center establishes clear and specific moments when the vocation is proposed. From the young person who desires to look into a vocational proposal, a clear orientation towards the Mission and its preparatory stages is requested.

3.5 Activities

-- Visits to parishes, seminaries and schools – done together with other missionaries.
-- Visits to schools, since they are a meeting point for youngsters. A qualified promoter is necessary who is acquainted with the school regulations of the nation.
-- Visits to diocesan seminaries. This takes place especially in Italy.
-- Monthly formative meetings and retreats for the young.
-- An annual theme is yearly chosen for the vocational accompaniment.
-- Vocational stages and annual Spiritual Exercises.
-- Pilgrimages: Fatima, St James (of Compostela) and Xavier (St Francis).
-- Work Camps and other moments during which the present-day social reality is met.
-- Missionary experiences in Africa (Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania).
-- Means of Communication. Collaboration with our magazines: Amico, Antena Misionera, Fátima Missionária, Missioni Consolata.
-- Preparing subsidies to be used in vocation formation and accompaniment.
-- Pastoral activities with and for immigrants.

3.6 Formating Promoters

3.6.1 We hold continental meetings for the formation of Promoters. During 2002, from May 28 to June 8, we studied the following themes: 1) Identity and attitudes of Promoters; 2) The Pastoral Project for the Youth; 3) Spiritual and vocational accompaniment.
-- This year, the meeting was in Turin, April 19-30, 2004. The following subjects were studied: 1)Vocational accompaniment; 2) MVP in Europe; 3) The Formative Project.

3.6.2 We also have periodical regional meetings for the Regions’ Promoters.
In these meetings we study themes relative to the person and the activities of the promoters; we underline their own formation and their moments of rest; how important it is to re-discover what MVP is; we talk about the need to develop the talents of the promoters, the need to make them more enthusiastic about their work; we also insist on presenting a clear vocational proposal and on providing appropriate and updated subsidies for them.

3.7 With the Consolata Lay Missionaries

3.7.1 Who are the Consolata Lay Missionaries (CLM)? First, we must distinguish them from the Lay Volunteers or the cooperators of the various organizations (ONG), and from other forms of missionary cooperation by those who are outside the Institute (Friends, Donors, Ladies Auxiliary, Ex-Seminarians, etc.)

3.7.2 The Consolata Lay Missionaries want to participate in our charism and in our spirituality. They form an apostolic community and go through a time of formation that lasts several years. They are open to leaving, open to being sent ad gentes when that is possbile; they engage in local IMC activities. (Cf. Statute of the CLM, in Official Bulletin, No. 101).

3.7.3 Organization

They are organized at the local and regional levels. There are organized communities in each one of our European Regions: Cacém and Ermezinde (Portugal); Saragozza, Malaga and Elche (Spain); Bevera, Martina Franca, Nervesa and Turin (Italy). At the regional level, there are coordinators that coordinate the activities of the local communities and the regional activities, and who take care of the contracts with the Regions.

3.7.4 Sending-off

From these communities, some have left for the missions in several countries: Colombia, Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Roraima, Venezuela. When they come back, they become integrated in their original community, in the MVP of our Institute and in the formation of other lay missionaries.

3.8 Difficulties

-- Conveying clearly the meaning of our missionary proposal in a world where Christianity is so very ancient, and yet a world so dechristianized;
-- Understanding the world of the young: Their world and the world of the promoters is indeed very different.
-- Working together, since each one wants to sell his own mercandise (Diocese, congregation, group).
-- Communitarian responsibility of MVP, not only the responsibility of the promoters.
-- Lack of personnel that is sufficient in number and efficient in preparation.
-- Lack of promoters of the nations where animation-promotion is done, which on one hand is an advantage, and on the other hand a limitation.
-- Team work at the local level.
-- Lack of a methodology that is adequate to today’s reality.

Fr. Francisco Lerma Martínez