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Message to the laic faithful of Latin America and the Caribbean
Message to the laic faithful of Latin America and the Caribbean

Message in which they reflect on the identity, spirituality, and mission of the laic man, to strengthen its ecclesial role in the world in the light of Appeared, face the Continental Mission.


Author: Staff | Source: celam.org



Message to the laic faithful of Latin America and the Caribbean 

Message in which they reflect on the identity, spirituality, and mission of the laic man, to strengthen its ecclesial role in the world in the light of Appeared, face the Continental Mission. 

By: | Source: celam.org 

Laity, bishops, and priests from 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries, convened by the Departments of Vocations and Ministries, Ecclesial Communion and Dialogue and Justice and Solidarity of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), we met in Lima, Peru from March 10 to 14, 2011, to reflect on the identity, spirituality, and mission of the laic man, with the aim of strengthening its ecclesial role in the world in the light of Appeared, facing the Continental Mission. We share this message, the fruit of our reflections, with the holy people of God who pilgrims on this continent, especially with the laity and laic people. 

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MESSAGE TO THE LAIC FAITHFUL OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 
Laity, Bishops, and Priests from 21 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, convened by the Departments of Vocations and Ministries, Ecclesial Communion and Dialogue and Justice and Solidarity of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), we have met in Lima, Peru from March 10 to 14, 2011, to reflect on the identity, spirituality, and mission of the laic man, with the purpose of strengthening its ecclesial role in the world in the light of Appeared, facing the Continental Mission. We share this message, the fruit of our reflections, with the holy people of God who pilgrims on this continent, especially with laic people and laity. 
I. SEE REALITY
1. The accelerated changes experienced in the present time indicate that "We live a change of age, whose deepest level is cultural" (DA 44). In the Processes of cultural construction, which arise from the personal and collective exchange, have been in today's world the criteria of efficiency, profitability and functional, destroying the authentically human (Cf. DA 45). Has been generated an impoverishment of great magnitudes as a result of an unfair distribution of resources, where a minority possesses most of the wealth with growing and new exclusions. 
2. We recognize that, in many of our countries, growth levels have been achieved never before seen, with considerable improvements in living standards for an Important part of its inhabitants. However, of the progress achieved it is seen that more than a third of the population is still at levels of extreme poverty. 
At the same time, we note that there is a worrisome and growing 
Inequality in the distribution of wealth, generating large amounts of excluded health systems, education, housing, and other services. 
3. The social media are the spearhead of cultural colonization that reduces or eliminates local cultures (Cf. DA 46). Youth grows in the logic of a narcissistic individualism (Cf. DA 51). For young generations, the sense of the past at the same time as the future is presented as a simple possibility, where the only thing that matters is to live the ecstasy of the present tense. 
4. We live in a digital world strongly marked by real-time communication in that speed is considered as a fundamental factor. The ways of thinking and actions of this time generate an instability of knowledge, customs, and truths. 
5. As part of the processes of cultural change, the family, the basic cell of the society, is submerged in a series of difficulties with continual attacks upon his identity by jeopardizing the stability of society. 
6. Considerable progress has been made in the field of human rights. Without we also note that it is becoming increasingly difficult to build economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. along with this, the corruption, the crisis of values, political individualism, violence, migration mass and the loss of citizen consciousness has increased astonishingly. 
7. In a particular way, we express our concern about the growing migration that our peoples live because of the lack of dignified and stable jobs and for reasons of political environment order, which threaten the lives of people and peoples. 
8. Among many of the positive signs, we find we are pleased to note the increase citizen participation in the search for a more just society and the democratic and social control processes of public entities and the deprived in defense of the dignified life and the rights of the citizens. 
9. The Latin American and Caribbean Church is for our continent the Church of hope and life. She lives her faith inserted into the multicultural reality of the peoples and a decisive commitment to the poor and the excluded from society. 
10. The crisis of modernity that we are living puts in question all the social institutions, of which religion is not exempt. She needs to give answers to the cultural transformations generated by the change of time. 
11. The awareness of the laity of their role of ecclesial stewardship is a positive factor, that assumed in-depth leads them to the total donation of their lives so that our people have life in fullness. (cf. Jn. 10.10) 
II. JUDGING REALITY
12. The Church, the people of God in communion and participation, is sent to announce the good news of Jesus Christ. She is at the service of the world as sacrament and instrument of the Kingdom of God. The bishops in Aparecida tell us that, "as disciples of Jesus Christ, we feel challenged to discern the "signs of the times," to the light of the Holy Spirit, to put us at the service of the Kingdom "(DA 33). We are called to look at the world and discover there the presence of the spirit that calls us to serve. 
13. Faced with the great challenges of the change of time, "the Church is called upon to rethink deeply and relaunch with fidelity and boldness his mission in the new Latin American and global circumstances "(DA 11). This requires us to rethink the common ways and means of living and working. Appeared warns us that our greatest threat "is the grey pragmatism of the everyday life of the Church in which apparently everything proceeds normally, but in reality, the faith is going wasting and degenerating in pettiness "(DA 12). We must therefore find and to build new structures that are much more flexible and of human quality. This implies moving from conservation pastoral to a missionary pastoral mission with prophetic audacity 
(cf. DA 370). 
14. In the cultural change that we live in, where the testimony becomes more relevant than the word and discourse, requires us to live the incarnate word and give life for the kingdom, which 
It leads us to reenchant the world from Jesus and the values of the Kingdom. 
15. Pope Pius XII warned us that the 21st century would be the century of the laity or else the Church would have serious difficulties in presenting itself to the world. This claim charges more and more prophetic force. The secular, missionary disciple of Jesus light of the
world must pervade social, political, economic and cultural structures, with the values of the realm of life. 
16. By baptism, we are all Church, we form a single body and share the same mission to make present the Kingdom of God with the charisms received. The changes demand the role of the laic man in the construction of society, with a self-spirituality that is lived and experienced in the human fabric of society. Cf. 
LG 31). The secular spirituality has its foundation in the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council presenting a Church people of God, in communion, participation, and mission. This spirituality has its center in the secular character of the laic vocation. 
17. An authentic laic spirituality does not alienate, it is not reduced to a religious individualism, or of temporary responsibilities, but it drives the faith in everyday life to live and in the pursuit and promotion of the common good, encouraged by the Word of God and the experience of the sacraments, mainly of the Eucharist. 
III. COMMITMENTS TO ACTION 
18. The urgency of God's love leads us to seek good practices that must be implemented in the life of the laity, making present to the Church committed to the Kingdom of God in the construction of a world more just, more human and ecologically sustainable. 
19. Inspired by Jesus Christ, incarnate Word, in the face of the challenges that reality presents, we propose: 
A. Abandoning outdated structures that do not favor the transmission of faith and life (Cf. DA 365) 
B. Renew structures and organizations with the participation of Christians in the construction of the new civilization. 
C. Deepen the laic identity at this time of the permanent continental mission; 
D. Promote the formation of the laity in a world in cultural crisis that seeks new paradigms, in a prophetic voice, which on one hand denounces the practices of death which exist in our midst and, on the other hand, announces the novelty of the Kingdom of life to form the word incarnate. 
E. To be a voice that defends and promotes life in the new Areopagus of society. 
F. Retaking the believing view of creation from the Word of God, 
understanding that everything carries in itself the imprint of the verb, by whom everything was done (Cf. VD 
109) 
G. Promote sober lifestyles. Reverting, with a new way of living the everyday, 
The effects of the current economic model, genocide, and Genocide. 
H. Creatively generate and promote forms of economy that privilege the dignity of the human being and promote justice, the common good, equality, and solidarity. 
I. Uphold dignified work as an online fundamental human right of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

J. Encourage the renewal of educational processes so that they facilitate the meeting and sharing of knowledge among people. That the education promoted the values that privilege the construction of justice, fraternity, solidarity, truth, peace, and love, in the valuation of being above having. 
K. Educate new generations in generosity and availability for solidarity service with social, environmental and ecological responsibility. 
L. To know, deepen and disseminate the Social Doctrine of the Church. 
M. In the bicentennial of the independence of our peoples, to take on the challenge of make this continent of hope a continent of love from the poor and excluded, where we are all citizens of the Americas, with responsibilities and rights, which requires us to definitively open our borders. 
N. The laic faithful who participate in the policy or public office in a direct or indirect are asked to: 
• Promote respect for life, from conception to its natural end. 
• Defend the family as the core of society and the privileged space of training. 
• Promote the processes of building a participatory democracy with ethics and respect for plurality, strengthening the auditing and control agencies of the powers of the State; 
• Promote the design and implementation of public policies that favor the quality of life of the poorest and most excluded, mainly in housing areas, food, health, and education. 
• Act coherently with your faith, assuming power as a service to the brothers and society to generate the common good, justice, peace, and solidarity. the construction of a new society, common house and fraternity space, is our responsibility to all. In it we are born, live and exert the variety of the gifts that the creator has given. Inspired by the Word of God and encouraged by the Holy Spirit of God, together with the people of goodwill, we assume with fortitude and courage the responsibility to contribute to the growth and expansion of the Kingdom of life, truth, justice, peace, and love. 
We feel that we are not alone in this task. The Spirit of God encourages, inspires and strengthens 
That, together with the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe, mother of Love and Lady of Hope, let us be before the world witnesses of the truth and of the love that leads to the meeting of the Lord resurrected who is among us walking with his people. 
Lima, March 2011








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