UGANDA: Pontifical Missionary Union Secretary General visits Uganda
Fr. Fabrizio addresses the Catholic Secretariat Staff
The Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PMU) and Director of International Centre for Missionary Animation, Rev. Fr. Fabrizio Meroni, has just concluded a 10-day pastoral visit to Uganda to promote ongoing missionary formation in the local Churches.
During the pastoral visit from 14th – 23rd November 2018, Fr. Fabrizio visited various institutions and dioceses across the country where he held respective meetings with priests, the Religious men and women and the laity including representatives of the Association of Catholic Professionals in Uganda, Uganda Martyrs University administrators, lectures and professors and the Uganda Catholic Secretariat staff among others.
During his visit at the Uganda Catholic Secretariat (UCS) on 19th November 2018, he met with the UCS staff and presided over the weekly morning Holy Mass. In his speech, he said the main purpose of his visit is to explain to the local Church the role of PMU, which is one of the four Pontifical Mission Societies at the International Secretariat in Rome; and to explain the role of other PMS’s and how to reawaken these societies in terms of missionary evangelisation.
“I didn’t come to lecture, give speeches or get involved in any Plenary assembly but to understand how we should radically reform the International Secretariat of PMS in the Vatican, having listened to your experiences in terms of missionary evangelisation,” Fr. Fabrizio told the UEC staff adding, “We want to get exposed to what is going on in the local churches, and come up with a conclusion which we will then submit to the Holy Father, Pope Francis.”
He added that the PMU’s charismatic missionary awareness provides a valid source for the rethinking and radical reformation which was and still is its intrinsic goal: to help all the faithful, the whole People of God, by virtue of Baptism, to be responsible for universal mission and the Church’s mission to people who are still outside the Church, Missio Ad Gentes.
The PMU Secretary General also talked about the upcoming Extraordinary Missionary Month (EMM) slated for October 2019, a month dedicated to missions. The celebration will mark the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s encyclical Maximum Illud, which is considered to be the charter of modern missions.
He said the Holy Father made a public announcement to the whole Church during his Angelus on 22nd October 2017, expressing his intention to call an EMM for October 2019 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud issued by his predecessor Pope Benedict XV, “with the purpose of reawakening awareness about the Mission ad Gentes and working with new impulse to further the missionary transformation and pastoral activity”.
“The preparation of a common text on missionary animation for 2019 EMM is already underway with input of human resources and ideas from all over the world. The text will be published in hard copy and digital and will serve as the fundamental material, to encourage local ecclesial creativity,” he noted.
According to Fr. Fabrizio, Pope Francis wants the forthcoming EMM to focus on helping Christians to strengthen their personal encounter with Christ; assisting the Faithful to rediscover the value of the saints and martyrs; to deepen the doctrine and to practice charity. Since the beginning of 2018, the PMU Secretary General has visited over 20 countries in a bid to promote the same message ahead of the 2019 EMM.
The PMU was founded in Italy in 1916 by Blessed Paolo Manna (PIME).
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By Jacinta W. Odongo, Media Officer, Uganda Episcopal Conference
